TopCat
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Posts posted by TopCat
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A painfully mid-table performance from Greenock 'mid-table' Morton.
Looking forward to next week to (presumably) give a fair few of these lads a decent send off for their efforts. We had some great entertainment in the middle part of the season, but a squad refresh is required.
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5 hours ago, Chicken_Soup said:
I’d have been happier with Power leaving the studs in a bit more often and committing professional fouls to stop attacks, rather than letting opponents run past him so easily when he’s our deepest midfielder.
True, but the main issue with that is that he's too slow and stiff to get close enough to do it a lot of the time.
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We've had a hard time from other managers, pundits and (to some extent) referees this season and the 'big bad Morton' line has been an easy excuse for folk to justify performances when we were steamrollering the whole league in the middle of the season.
However, some of our players discipline has been terrible in recent weeks. Baird made an arse of himself last night, Broadfoot has had a few moments of losing the plot and Power has been leaving the studs in a few times too often. The overall number of fouls we're giving away and bookings we're picking up isn't constructive at all - it's one thing to play with physicality and aggression and another to lash out when things aren't going your way. That needs reigned in for next season.
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Offer deals/keep;
Strapp, O'Connor, Blues, Crawford, Garrity, Muirhead, Oakley, Power
Release;
MacDonald, Waters, Broadfoot, Gillespie, Quitongo, McGrattan, French (into the sun)
Consider a loan out until January;
Bearne, King, Garrity
I'd keep Power for cover for another season but we really need a good upgrade on Gillespie to make that one work.
Given that the competition for players will only increase with the clubs likely to be in the league, I'd hope we'll already be chasing players from League One who look like they're on an upwards trajectory. We need a bigger squad but it's likely to be cheaper young players and loans we can afford to do that with.
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I think Blues can be really effective in a 5 man midfield but really painful to watch when it's more like a midfield 3.
The decision to offer him a contract should come down to what the rest of the midfield is going to look like, or if we have the budget to keep him as cover/a runner for harder away ties.
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We really lack a creative spark without Wilson and Strapp. Everything just looks ragged.
Hopefully we can get those two up to speed for the last few games and get as much prize money in the pot as possible. It'll likely be 10 full time teams in the league next season, every penny is a prisoner now.
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24 minutes ago, Deego said:
Laird did say something along the lines of the exception to that would be if the manager puts forward a strong case for signing an older player.
I've heard him speaking about this a couple of times. I think the context is that he thinks that every signing should be as part of a plan to push us towards promotion or improve year on year, as opposed to cobbling together a team for championship survival.
You could make an argument for e.g. the likes of Power being a part of that but the likes of Midge, Broadfoot etc. fall more into the decent, but seeing out a final season of their career category. I'd argue that the overall transfer strategy isn't something that should sit completely with a first team manager on that basis.
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2 hours ago, vikingTON said:
To take just one game - the first competitive game of the season - O'Connor got turned by a routine punt up the park by Ross County in the closing stages to give Simon Murray an easy finish. That cost us that game and has been the story of his season.
I'm not calling for him to be released but he simply hasn't progressed into a reliable Championship centre back yet. Like many others on the fringes of our first team, they should be looking to themselves for answers about their game time or lack of it. Imrie's not deliberately picking a shite team to lose games.
Completely agree with this last part. We've had two atrocious runs of form this season, only one of which can really be partly excused by an injury crisis. This would suggest that there are a number of first team players who just aren't good enough for a top half finish, along with squad players who aren't good enough to dislodge them. As much as I'd like to see all of our youth players do well, I'd be happy for the club to be ruthless with them in the summer as well.
Quitongo, French, Waters, Strapp and Broadfoot are the obvious wages that are likely to be freed up (plus anything left from Boyd and Harkness). We don't need replacements to compete, we need improvements on these players as well as on the likes of Blues and Gillespie. That doesn't look very likely if we hold on to all of our 'prospect' players.
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8 minutes ago, Hej said:
Same old shite supporting this club. Have a good season then throw it away at the arse end. Getting real boring.
I think this will be 8 out of the last 9 seasons with us finishing between 4th and 7th in the championship (relegation playoff in the covid season the blip).
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Power and Broadfoot have proved me wrong since their shocker of a start to the season but neither played well today. However, I'd lay this one at Imrie's feet. Playing those 2 away from home on a horrible pitch in howling wind with the positional bombscares that are Waters and French is just asking for trouble. We should either be tweaking the line up or our approach to the game to suit the situation, not just walking into the opposition gameplan.
Airdie are fairly tidy on the ball and have had the edge on us in terms of general play for most of our games this season. Disappointing not to see us improving much against them.
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34 minutes ago, TAFKAC said:
Read through the thread. The basic premise is that he's lazy and had a pop at the support when he scored. He cupped his ears, it's hardly a hanging offence. I don't think he's lazy. He's just slow and slightly cumbersome and doesn't do the fan pleasing unnecessary runs against lost causes. I watched the Motherwell goals again, one for him and the other coming as a result of him closing down McGinn and winning the ball.
More to the point, where do you see the 16 goals coming from? He's 5th top league scorer with 11. He's not a natural no. 9 despite the shirt number.
I think the general point is that he had broadly sorted out his attitude issues but let some of them creep back in recently. I'm not personally offended by the bite back at the fans (Longridge and the Ref's antics added to the entertainment for me on Saturday) but i think it's a reasonable point for folk to make.
For Crawford and Blues, I suspect the number of minutes in the legs are the biggest factor in their wee dip (that applies to Muirhead as well). Blues also doesn't really look comfortable with the utility player responsibility that Imrie has given him either and Crawford is nudging on for 30 now.
Muirhead's goal tally is unlikely to be replicated by any Morton player next season. We should be looking at upgrades on the Garrity/Bearne/King/Boyd/McGrattan/Quitongo pool to deal with that. We're probably about 20 goals short of a genuine promotion tilt.
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1 hour ago, RossMcC1874 said:
The only reason Muirhead gets stick is because of his attitude and sometimes lack of commitment not chasing, not pressing and looking genuinely uninterested.
Of course he has the ability no one has ever questioned that and for a large part of this season and last season he has been excellent but he shouldn't be immune from criticism. Other things like taking the huff when he has been called our or gestures to the crowd even the fact that he never seems to do any media interviews are things people will pick up on.
If you were picking between him and say Oakley it would be Oakley everyday of the week because of the attitude, workrate and commitment. The sad thing is if Muirhead does leave at the end of the season you just feel that it could have been so much more than it probably was.
Completely agree with the rest of this but, in his defence, I'm led to believe Muirhead has perfectly valid reasons for avoiding interviews.
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A fairly open game in terms of chances at either end. Hopefully a good wee confidence booster for Bearne and Muirhead as well. I thought Imrie's subs and formation switch at the end were a bit strange - we basically conceded the midfield at a point Queens Park looked like they'd lost the plot.
Edit - I actually thought Quitongo looked properly fit today. He attempted a few proper sprints for a change.
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27 minutes ago, Cappiecat 1.2 said:
I understand people's frustration with Muirhead but this statement is utter bollocks. This season (so far) Robbie is our top scorer and he also has provided the most assists, without him we'd already be relegated.
Suspect that's in reference to the fact that, barring a few flashes, he hasn't turned up since his cracking performance against Ayr on the 2nd of January. Admittedly there's another few in the squad in a similar position.
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It's all the more annoying because this shift in attitude comes after a decent period of really applying himself and playing well.
His performances have slid back to be every bit as bad as the covid season - swaggering around the pitch, drawing out of tackles, standing still and chuntering to himself with his head down. He's a talented footballer but he's a big baby.
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13 hours ago, dunning1874 said:
That pre-Oakley unbeaten run last season we were very reliant on natural width with Quitongo on the right and McGrattan or Kabia on the left, with the long balls primarily aimed at finding the feet of wingers rather than going for Muirhead's head and trying to play off flick ons.
I can understand why Imrie has stuck with things like Blues on the right when he was in fantastic form there until a few games ago, but in Oakley's absence we need that natural width back to give us an outball. Having naturally central players there is fine when we're scrapping for second balls in a congested middle of the park and you want whoever's playing out wide to be comfortable stepping inside, but with no target man to aim at we need players who are comfortable opening up space by hugging the touchline, linking up with Strapp and French and carrying us up the park by running at full backs.
Garrity has to start next week.
Completely agree with this. Oakley often occupies 2 centre backs on his own, keeping the opposition defence pinned back all the time. Without Oakley and any ball-carrying or out-ball threat from our wide players, teams are coming to Cappielow and playing their fullbacks really high up the park to get the better of us in midfield.
Blues and Muirhead have been excellent recently but it's time for a tweak to the gameplan.
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8 hours ago, port-ton said:
That's both the Motherwell game and tonight that we fannies from that section have been throwing things at morton fans at the front of the Cowshed as well. It's a shame as that section have put in such an amazing effort to make cappielow a better experience for all Morton fans and are being let down by some idiots during the big nights at cappielow.
Admittedly there were also a few blootered folk trying to start fights at the back of it as well (including one particular pain in the arse in a bobble hat and tracksuit who seemed to spend fully 2 hours acting a hard man).
A few bumpers aside, I thought the whole operation was relatively slick compared to previous big games. The club deserves credit for that. Hopefully this gives them a bit of confidence that minor improvements make a difference.
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If the injuries are still an issue I can see Imrie being tempted with a more defensive 4-2-4 type setup. It's not as if either of our last two forward combinations have worked very well anyway.
Gillespie and Power holding, Blues wide right, Muirhead wide left, Quitongo and Crawford pressing through the middle.
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I don't think many individuals actually played that badly today, we just looked completely devoid of a coherent gameplan.
Muirhead can't play as an effective target man, its just not his strength. Hopefully Imrie can come up with a tweak to the system to compensate for Oakley missing the next handful of games. Otherwise we're going to be under a lot of pressure if we're not carrying an attacking threat.
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Reliably informed that Blues cracked a joke in his hospitality interview about being the worst winger in Morton's history. I thought he looked visibly stressed at times yesterday at the idea of dribbling past his man.
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Can you mute users on here?
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Muirhead's all-round approach to the game has improved massively under Imrie. While his contribution from set pieces etc. has been great recently, he always had the raw ability to make that happen.
It's his attitude to the donkey work and getting stuck into a physical battle that both Muirhead and Imrie deserve the most credit for sorting out.
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Exactly. We still don't have enough turnstiles, but a decent sign above them that's visible from further back in the queue and some stewards who actually help folk who struggle would definitely make a difference.
2024/25 Squad and Transfers
in General Morton Chatter
Posted
Will our financial position be significantly worse than Ayr, Airdrie, Livi and Inverness/Hamilton?
Falkirk, Queens Park, Dunfermline, Partick and one of Raith/St Johnstone/Ross County would normally outbid us in a straight offer but I don't see any reason as to why we couldn't compete directly with the first group for signings.