dunning1874

I think the argument with Murdoch is different from Corr & Hart, because there was actually something to learn about Murdoch. Where Corr & Hart should be moved on in January and everyone already knew this, it's good to know that Murdoch needs a loan to get some experience at a decent level rather than being ready to be second choice and step in if Storer's unavailable. It's why I was happy going into the League Cup with him as first choice (though that was also based on expecting the obviously not good enough Woods to still be here as well), find out if he's good enough to maintain the solid performances he had last season when there was time to sign an upgrade. That was answered quickly enough with the Peterhead game followed by Storer then being an excellent signing. Personally I'd rather have had the strongest team possible on the park anyway, but I can at least see the argument that's there's a benefit to both the club and Murdoch himself in playing him, where one doesn't exist for Corr or Hart.

For the millionth time, that's what we already knew. No one is expecting us to have a further two centre backs of equal standard to the starting two sitting on the bench every week, but we already knew that there was a massive drop off to Corr that means he is not dependable cover and should be moved on for an alternative in January. We didn't need last night to come to that conclusion.

I didn't say we were. Your justification for playing Corr and Hart was that finding out they weren't good enough to even cope with Stirling is good to know before January; we already knew they should both be leaving in January on account of obviously not being good enough for the Championship. They could have strolled through the game in a comfortable win last night and it wouldn't change that reality, so we've learned nothing by picking them. If playing one midweek game would constitute running Longridge and Moore into the ground then we're going to have big problems later in the season.

We already knew Corr wasn't good enough for the Championship and should be getting moved on in January from the evidence of being consistently pish throughout his time with the club. We already knew that Hart will be also be leaving in January from his literal zero minutes in the league 17 games in, and somehow being poor enough in training to remain below Corr in the pecking order. Therefore there was no value in giving them game time as there was nothing to learn, we didn't need to write off a cup to get further confirmation about them being mince. Being papped out of our only realistic chance of a trophy by the poorest team in the SPFL so far this season can't be anything but.

That's an absolutely disgraceful and disastrous result against the worst team in the SPFL. Even if he wanted the job rather than being deluded enough to think he's above it, Davies' performance as caretaker should rule him out of the job anyway.

Hope not. I don't want any of the unemployed with their last job in the Championship options because I see them all as a considerable downgrade on Imrie, but at least McCabe, Doolan and Murray are all much better than McPake. If you have comfortably one of the biggest budgets in your division then McPake might get you over the line to promotion, in any other context he'll massively underachieve. We'd be as well voluntarily relegating ourselves.

That record article reads like a planted agent puff piece, to be honest. It's ambiguous in the wording about him leaving Coleraine, leaving open the interpretation that he chose to leave himself when he was actually sacked, and talks up a track record of working with tight budgets when Coleraine had pushed the boat out and gone full-time. Players like Charles Dunne and Declan McManus won't have come cheap and suggest he was working with a comfortably bigger budget there than he'd have here, despite being in a much weaker league overall. Lots of people thought it was a harsh sacking so I'm not saying he's necessarily a bad manager, but there are some eyebrow raising claims in there.

I don't know where the idea that Lamie is especially injury prone has come from? He had one bad achilles injury at Ross County that basically ended his career there before it started because he couldn't get back into the team after it, but that's the only long term absence he's had. Across Livingston, Motherwell & Dundee there was the occasional knock but he's hardly got Iain Wilson's record. As for being finished, nothing to suggest that either. He's slow, but he always was. He was good for Hamilton last season despite having to suffer playing with McGinty.

Lamie is better than what we have in starting XI and we're also only an injury away from Corr starting games; it's a no brainer. Bring him home.

Murray was under contract until summer 2027, so that's possible. While we're on contract lengths, of names mentioned who are with other clubs, Gary Naysmith and Michael McIndoe are both under contract until summer 2028. Alloa didn't publicise the length of Andy Graham's new contract in the summer but probably a reasonable assumption that it was only one year, considering there was widespread agreement (including Graham publicly describing himself as underachieving) that last season was a failure and he was lucky to get a new deal at all. Doesn't mean any of them don't have clauses that would still make compensation affordable when we've just received compensation ourselves.

I couldn't care less about him sitting in the stand rather than the dugout, plenty of managers do it for a better view, but in general a cynical reading of Davies not wanting the job could be that he thinks he's above managing Morton, will at some point be leaving for a better job when a managerial offer comes along and is doing us a favour by being here in the meantime. On the bright side, if we manage to take six points from the Queen's Park and Airdrie games then that would put us on 24 points after 18 games, at worst 10 points clear of 10th and probably more: the new manager would need to be a disaster to relegate us from that position. Alternatively, if we fail to win either we're in serious bother.

Mick Kennedy is the definition of a chequebook manager yet has also consistently underachieved despite his massive advantage, and has probably already been working with a larger budget than Imrie has for years. It would be an unmitigated disaster.

Boyd's at St Cadoc's, who are currently bottom of the West Premier.

Thank fuck for that.

Penalties.

Even if we somehow make it through here, being taken to extra-time in the first place should rule Davies out of the job.

We're allowed another sub with it going to extra-time, but who knows if either of the 16 year olds play in a more attacking position or are up to being thrown into this situation.

Fucks sake. Now have to get through extra-time with the 10 men being Storer, Ballantyne, Comrie, Longridge, Moore, Corr, Delaney, MacPherson, O'Halloran & Shaw. What shape is that going to be in?

I'm guessing Lyall can't play in the cup under the terms of his loan, but even if he's back in for league games that injury list is bad. That could be a continuation of the 4-3-1-2 type set up we've seen lately with Garrity taking Shaw's place behind Moffat and Adeloye, or could be a switch back to 4-3-3. Ballantyne back in is good news.

No, there used to be a rule about having two outfield under 21s but that was scrapped years ago. Only requirement now is that you have to designate your goalkeeper on the bench, and if you have no backup goalkeeper to name you lose a sub. This rule of course proved that David Hopkin was telling lies in 20/21 about the club "not being able to afford a second choice goalkeeper" when he'd built a squad with about 10 wingers, as when it came to the Scottish Cup we curiously managed to name Chris Wylie on the bench in every round.

Boyd scored the same number of league goals Davies did and one of his was a penalty, though he also scored one v Kelty in the League Cup as well. Almost twice as many appearances for Davies, though Boyd had more starts. He was crap. Miller was mostly mediocre then burst into life for the final four or five games of the season. At the time it was easy to be cynical and wonder if that was a player only deciding to go up a gear when it was time to earn a contract rather than him finally adjusting to the Championship and hitting his stride after only joining in January, but the seasons he's had since prove it was the latter.

I think I'm correct in this being the full list of players who played under Imrie, can argue the position for some but there are so many wingers/anywhere behind the striker types they're worth their own category rather than being listed together with the strikers. Goalkeepers: Jack Hamilton, Brian Schwake, Jamie MacDonald, Ryan Mullen, Lewis Budinauckas, Gary Woods, Sam Murdoch, Jimmy Storer Defenders: Jack Baird, Brian McLean, Lewis Strapp, Darren Hynes, Michael Ledger, Jamie Brandon, Alan Lithgow, Oisin McEntee, Mark Russell, Efe Ambrose, Liam Grimshaw, Darragh O'Connor, Carlo Pignatiello, Calum Waters, Kirk Broadfoot, Tyler French, Cammy Ballantyne, Morgan Boyes, Dylan Corr, Zak Delaney, Aaron Comrie, Sonny Hart, Jackson Longridge, Kris Moore Midfielders: Cammy Blues, Kyle Jacobs, Reece Lyon, Alex King, Iain Wilson, Grant Gillespie, Robbie Crawford, Ali Crawford, Matthew Davidson, Logan O'Boy, Alan Power, Arron Lyall, Cammy MacPherson, Kerr Robertson, Kian Taylor Wingers/forwards: Lewis McGrattan, Robbie Muirhead, Gary Oliver, Michael Garrity, Lewis McGregor, Jaze Kabia, Calvin Miller, Jai Quitongo, Ally Roy, Jack Bearne, Steven Boyd, Jordan Davies, Niall McGinn, Owen Moffat, Lamar Reynolds, Austin Samuels, Nathan Shaw, Zak McKay, Michael O'Halloran Strikers: Zander Easdale, Gavin Reilly, Gozie Ugwu, George Oakley, Cameron Keay, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, Filip Stuparevic, Tomi Adeloye, Eamonn Brophy Best XI, 4-2-3-1: GK Mullen RB Brandon LB Strapp CB Baird CB McEntee CM Wilson CM Grimshaw AM R. Crawford LM Muirhead RM but tucking inside Blues ST Oakley Wanted to keep that mostly to Imrie's own signings, but Strapp is obviously levels above Waters & Delaney, Blues & Muirhead had to be there for how Imrie improved them and McEntee was just too good to leave out. Grimshaw obviously spent most of his time at right back but had to include both Grimshaw and Brandon. If I was dropping McEntee it'd probably be Moore replacing him. Worst XI, 4-1-3-2: GK Woods RB French CB Broadfoot CB Corr LB Waters DM Power LM Boyd AM McGinn RM Samuels ST Emmanuel-Thomas ST Roy There are a couple of worse players that he inherited in there, but keeping it to his own signings all of them deserve a place. Power did at least have a couple of months of decent form but was never even as good mediocre outwith that spell and was terrible more often than he was fine, while Waters is just the poorest of only three options. The rest were completely hopeless.

Some fans of any club aren't going to take kindly to the idea that a manager didn't really want the job, but it also doesn't mean he isn't going to give his full commitment to it now he's there. The voice note by itself isn't going to change anyone's view of him. Even if he does actually give an interview about what's happened - which we'd need to have any hope of forcing Laird or Robinson and by extension the club to acknowledge this rather than dismissing it as baseless rumours - provided he doesn't explicitly say the words "I didn't even want to go to Raith" then he can still paint a picture of how the board effectively forced him out without burning any bridges with the Raith board or fans, but it's equally understandable if he doesn't want to do that to avoid the risk.

Graham Barr is still the MCT representative on the board, but as we saw with the transfer embargo MCT reps being there didn't mean the boards actually communicated. I think it's just a throwaway courtesy line in a statement they've put out to acknowledge Imrie's departure, there's nothing negative to read into it. Of course the boards should be communicating with each other anyway, but that confirms that they still are.

Anyone actually wanting Imrie to leave or talking of sacking him is wild. You can spin various stats any way you like and argue managers who managed a top four finish for us were ultimately more successful because of managing one higher league placing, but for consistency of performance Imrie had a better points per game record at this level than any Morton manager since Tommy McLean. At any club at this level, but especially Morton with our past track record, it's an unavoidable reality of football that you'll have more bad managers than good ones and most will end up going due to being sacked or mutually consented for poor results. That being the case, when you actually get a good manager you should do everything you can to keep them, because it's extremely difficult to keep getting appointments right and especially so when you're operating with a lower budget than your competitors. Everyone agrees that 3 wins in 16 needed to improve but he should have been absolutely nowhere near the sack, the idea that we'd have been anywhere near paying him off is risible. If there'd been no interest from Raith and we'd sacked him on Monday for poor performance, the sack the board shouts in response would have been deafening.