dunning1874

All players miss sitters, yes. Ali Crawford missed three and a penalty, having also missed one against Ayr and failed to take a very good chance against Queen's Park as well, albeit that one wasn't quite in the sitter category. No other player has passed up six gilt edged chances in four games while scoring none and being dreadful in their all round play as well. It's the double standard people have an issue with here: if McGrattan is going to be bombed out for that one mistake, and I don't think he could complain about being dropped after that game albeit I wouldn't have done so with Quitongo injured, why is Ali Crawford getting 90 minutes despite costing us more points in four games than Schwake has all season? That's looking at chances alone, before even taking into account being the obvious weak link in the overall performance as well, while we subbed Robbie Crawford who was the best player on the park.

If in the year 2050 a 67 year old Dougie Imrie steps on the hallowed Cappielow turf for his testimonial having retired as the manager who pulled off unthinkable miracles, having won Scottish Cups, League titles and even the Champions League, I want it to be known that I will still boo if Ali fucking Crawford is within a mile of Cappielow. My point here being, regardless of valid criticisms to be made of Schwake, in five games Crawford has already cost us more points.

Ali Crawford needs to go in the same bin as Ally Roy. He's absolutely dreadful and shouldn't play another minute for the club. Played five games and already thrown away as many points as Schwake has.

While on balance of recent performances I agree that Pignatiello is more deserving of a place in the starting XI than Blues, Quitongo's continued absence should also mean Muirhead (himself more deserving of a place than Miller or Ali Crawford) on the right. In that scenario I'd be more comfortable still having Grimshaw at right back rather than both positions on the right being filled by players who are weaker defensively than the first choices. It's a reasonable shout though, maybe Grimshaw and Gillespie together could combat their control of midfield and lead to less pressure on the defence anyway.

We need to see one of Gillespie/Grimshaw in midfield here, and McGrattan back out wide. A midfield with as little defensive presence as our last two games will be dominated Arbroath, in the same way they did in both games at Cappielow.

Most recent example is 18/19 when Celtic beat 6th placed Hearts in the final. Hearts didn't get into Europe, with 4th placed Aberdeen qualifying instead.

It's only if they win the cup they get the European spot, runners-up get nothing. If a team who've already finished in the top two win it the cup winners spot transfers to 3rd in the league, with 4th & 5th getting the earlier Conference League spots rather than 3rd and 4th.

An unfortunate phrase to use, considering the reason he's reviled. McGinty is my most hated Morton player ever by a considerable distance. He knows exactly what he did and he should legitimately have spent time in prison for it along with a lifelong ban from working in football in any capacity.

McGrattan starting: P14 W9 D4 L1 McGrattan not starting: P14 W2 D5 L7 Extrapolate those point per game totals for a 36 game season and you'd get 79 points with McGrattan, 28 points without him. One total that would have you cantering to the title by about 15 points and another that would have you relegated by about 10 points. Generating a half-yard is a great way of describing of McGrattan. He opens up that space for the rest of the midfield with his positional sense and workrate as you say, but he also has the same unteachable knack to buy himself some room with one clever touch that the likes of Chris Millar had. Contrast with how often Miller or Ali Crawford ran into blind alleys yesterday because they had no idea how to deal with being in a tight space.

The foundation of our successful runs of results this season has been first and foremost how high up the park we press out of possession and the intensity with the ball. We've seen a team selection in the last three games that has basically left us with three of the front four unable to press effectively, and the problems in our performances stem from there. Formations have fluctuated over the season but if you generally view it as a 4-2-3-1 for simplicity's sake, our best runs have been with the three behind the striker being McGrattan, Robbie Crawford and Quitongo. Quitongo being out just now can't be helped and he's probably the most critical of those three in moving us up the park, both in pressing and as an outball, but that makes it all the more important not to remove the other two. When you have Miller, Ali Crawford and Muirhead in those three positions instead you've pretty much entirely lost the ability to press from that three. I wouldn't accuse any of laziness but none of them have the same defensive positional sense as our best three there and simply don't press nearly as well because they don't know how. We also see them not offering enough protection to the full backs or helping out the sitting midfield two as much as McGrattan, R. Crawford or Quitongo. A team could handle one of those drop offs defensively if you think one of those players is going to offer more creatively and want to accommodate them for that reason (although arguing that for any of them is a massive stretch, especially Miller). You can't handle all three at once. It's exacerbated by not having Gillespie or Grimshaw in midfield. As you don't have as much pressing and teams are waltzing into our half with no pressure, Robbie Crawford is having to push up out of the sitting two to shut the ball down in the absence of central one of that three getting back behind the ball. That then leaves Blues alone as the sitting midfielder, which is a difficult task for any player but one he is especially unsuitable for. You've seen how often in the last three games we've had players not being shut down on the edge of our box and particularly the number of second balls we fail to win in our own half. Again you maybe get away with Crawford and Blues as a sitting two if you've still got the defensive presence of McGrattan and Quitongo out wide, but even that feels a stretch. If Gillespie's not going to start for either fitness or form, then we need to have Grimshaw in there. The drop off in standard at right back with Pignatiello being a downgrade on Grimshaw is less than the drop off in midfield without either of them. You get away with Muirhead or Ali Crawford playing centrally if the other three in the front four are Oakley, McGrattan and Quitongo. You can get away with one of those two or Miller out wide if the other three are Oakley, Robbie Crawford and one of Quitongo/McGrattan. You can't have two of them behind Oakley for this system to work, never mind all three.

Fact is that before the electronic turnstiles you could turn up a minute before kick-off and get in. Fan behaviour is therefore evidently not the issue, and the vast majority of football fans are always going to turn up within 15 minutes of kick-off.

You'd hope having a new ticketing partner could also mean some changes to the turnstiles themselves. Ripping them out entirely and starting again is possibly going to be too costly so having a full efficient set of QR code readers that move as fast as airport security gates like Arbroath installed over the summer isn't going to happen, but you'd hope we could even change the technology on the existing ones to scan QR codes in a similar way.

That conduct last night should surely be the final straw for the steward in question. It can be a genuine mistake to not realise there's a minute silence in the first place, but to bellow "don't tell me to shut up!" after having it pointed out is completely unacceptable.

I think this was the significant problem last night. The big queue coming down Sinclar Street from the ticket office towards the Cowshed was probably supposed to be the only queue which could then split into four at the front, but in practice that one queue was for the one turnstile closest to that end of the street and the other three had considerably shorter queues with those coming from the Norseman/main road.

McGrattan starting: P14 W9 D4 L1 McGrattan not starting: P13 W2 D4 L7 Only defeat with him was at Raith in August, when incidentally he was in central midfield rather than out wide. The two wins without him were also in August. You can arguably have two of Muirhead, Oakley and Ali Crawford in the same team, but never all three. You might get away with shoehorning Muirhead in on the wing if you have McGrattan or Quitongo on the other side and Robbie Crawford as the most advanced midfielder, to do the pressing and defensive work he won't. You might get away with Ali Crawford playing behind the striker (or even Muirhead) despite the lack of defensive qualities if you have McGrattan and Quitongo out wide to cover for him. You certainly can't have all three of them in the team and you can't play a front two with this squad regardless of who's in the XI. That Imrie didn't spot this blatantly apparent truth in the second half was really out of character for him. It was so obvious how easily they were playing through us due to the total lack of presence in midfield and I was genuinely shocked he persisted with that obviously failing shape.

The diamond midfield is never going to work with this squad. We got away with it second half on Saturday despite the space it allowed in midfield because Queen's Park lost their heads after we scored on the counter attack, but 3-1 utterly flattered us there as Ayr targeted that space and waltzed through it at will.

I'd say there was no chance of Miller emptying them, considering that he hadn't beaten a man all night.

Three appalling goals to concede. Two of them coming from set-pieces is a major concern. Trying to accommodate both Muirhead and Oakley in the team together is not going to work. It destroys the balance of the midfield.

The epitome of a club legend. RIP.

I'm sure no Morton board would ever be daft enough to budget for crowds of 4000 when we were newly promoted to the second tier.

You'd think there'll be no need for tickets as we'll have the usual Ochilview away end, but we can make a cracking atmosphere in that terrace if we're remotely close to filling it. Some laugh that Queen's Park are struggling for capacity at a stadium bigger than the one they're building.

Dundee United are the one Premiership club I've looked at as a concern for Imrie going. Motherwell were never likely to appoint him due to Hamilton connections, Aberdeen are never going to appoint a manager based on performance in the Championship, Hibs are also unlikely to if they sacked Johnson. No one else is facing even a remote threat of the sack, McInnes and Mackkkay included even if they get relegated. It's the same reason I don't really want Dundee United relegated, because if they're down here and so are we it's the obvious appointment. The timing of this probably works in our favour though. Imrie's an ambitious manager who'd back himself to succeed but this would be a particularly shite time to take over Dundee United, where a manager could end up with a relegation on their CV through little fault of their own. For someone like Imrie who'd be on his first top flight job and isn't considered as fashionable off the back of his playing career as some others that could set him back several years. Dundee United are also showing signs of significantly reigning in their spending, having barely done anything in January while the owner's comments at the AGM last week basically amounted to saying he doesn't have a bottomless pit of money and can't keep subsidising losses the way he has been for the last five years. Not only does that raise question marks over quite how appealing a job it is (though obviously a step up from us) it also makes me doubt they'll be going out and paying compensation to get a manager in another job when they're already going onto their third of the season, with the first having been on an expensive and lengthy contract. They also have an incompetent Sporting Director who seems to be both a total arsehole and as big a problem in their recent failings as the managers, who doesn't look like going anywhere. Imrie is inevitably going to get a move to a bigger club eventually, but if the daft media narrative around big bad streetwise Morton keeps us unfashionable and leads to the likes of Bullen, Coyle and Murray being looked at instead for the time being then brilliant. It's maybe better having the Dundee United job come up now and seeing them appoint someone to the end of next season, rather than only coming up in the summer after relegation when a good manager could look at it as a great opportunity for a title.

That was fucking magnificent, the most I've enjoyed a win this season. Digging the result out from that position was terrific.

Cove's pressing is causing us all kinds of problems, we're far too passive which is letting them both turn it into a scrap and win it. The number of crosses we've had into the box was always likely to result in a goal, despite being tidy in possession in spells we've not created nearly enough, absolutely howling miss from McGrattan aside.

If everyone who was unfit last week remains unavailable to start, you move Grimshaw back to right back in place of Pignatiello, Robbie Crawford deeper and Ali Crawford at the front of the midfield three. Really the only change to the XI in that scenario is Crawford for Pignatiello in a roundabout way. If you try to accommodate either of Muirhead and Gillespie as well as Ali Crawford, that is going turn into a very interesting looking team, where some good performers over the two consecutive wins are being hard done by.