Jump to content

The Greenock Morton Thread - It's Better Than Yours


Recommended Posts

If Gus is kept on it’ll be interesting to see who he looks to retain. He had no issue immediately bombing out the likes of Omar, Wallace, Salkeld & ‘Justin Johnson’ so he is willing to be ruthless. He’s smart enough to know that despite last night, retaining more than a couple of those players would just leave us in the exact same position next year. 

Despite the budget, building a squad that can at least finish 7th/8th really shouldn’t be beyond us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, virginton said:

That's just nonsense on stilts from start to finish. A competent manager (say Stewart Petrie for argument's sake) could absolutely find better players than Hopkin's jobs lot of utter pish last summer. His job would be made harder, not easier, by having a bunch of mediocre players already contracted to the club, that he either has to play or move on. And most of the players that you want to keep will not be giving the club that option anyway, so this idea that 'clean slate' approach means that we choose to release Ledger or Fjortoft is a straw man argument. They'll most likely be off anyway, so the continuity that you're craving means 'giving new deals to duds'.

Oliver is a textbook example of this mentality. He left us after a disappointing campaign in which he did next to nothing, then went to Queens where he had a disappointing spell and did next to nothing, then came back to us and couldn't shift Kalvin fucking Orsi out of the team - yet after one very good performance it's suddenly 'the way we play' that's the issue? Erm no. The last three years of evidence is much more telling here: he's a good League One standard player but doesn't deliver regularly enough against the higher standard of player in the Championship. Move on.

Read the post, for f**k’s sake. I said quite clearly we won’t have a choice to keep certain players. And you just keep ignoring the fact that we have struggled - and will continue to struggle - to sign half a dozen better players, never mind a full squad.

Your scorched earth policy, on 22 May, is as plain daft as your bizarre desperation to see us relegated.

I thought you might shut the f**k up for a few days after that total minter, but we live and learn (well, some of us do...).

Edited by The Ghost of B A R P
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Andre Drazen said:

Muirhead is able to score against shite. Didn't we always know this?

Not really tbh. See our huffing and puffing against East Fife and every other lower league team in the cups. 

Glad that he's found a level for him to enjoy his football but it cannot be with us in the Championship again. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, madton said:

Would you have said that at the end of the league campaign?  I'm guessing no.

We can't hand out deals based on one moment of magic or one good performance in 25.  I'm guessing we will go with around 16-18 senior players with Hynes etc as backup.  

Overall, he has been  horrendous for us. He may well go on and do it elsewhere  but he's had his chance, never took it and needs to move on.

My problem with Muirhead is the same as it’s always been: he clearly (unlike someone like Orsi) has the technical ability to play at this level (we already kinda knew that when he signed). He’s big and strong enough to compete (the question mark over, say, McGuffie).

So the problem is elsewhere, ‘attitude’ or something. That’s why he’s enraged me more than anybody else in the squad: it’s one thing getting frustrated with guys who aren’t good enough, but it’s not their fault, it’s whoever signed them’s fault; with Muirhead, you just feel it is his fuckin fault...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Read the post, for f**k’s sake. I said quite clearly we won’t have a choice to keep certain players.

So your desire for continuity involves retaining jobbers then.

Quote

And you just keep ignoring the fact that we have struggled - and will continue to struggle - to sign half a dozen better players, never mind a full squad.

Half a dozen better players than whom? Of all the players that you're desperate to keep, only one - Nesbitt - represented any sort of coup in the transfer market when they were signed. The others who were signed were either not in favour at a club or a gamble like McAdams. What exactly is there to prevent a competent manager from doing the same and better business in the transfer market, than Hopkin's ten attacking midfielders disaster last summer? 

Quote

Your scorched earth policy, on 20 May, is as plain daft as your bizarre desperation to see us relegated.

Scorched earth suggests that there is something valuable being sacrificed. We finished 9th in a piss-poor Championship so no, that's not the case at all.

Just because we won a playoff does not make the campaign acceptable. The squad needs to be broken up and if we don't learn that lesson and be absolutely ruthless about this then there will be no such second chance on offer next May. 

Quote

I thought you might shut the f**k up for a few days after that total minter, but we live and learn (well, some of us do...).

^^^ verge of tears

I will never stop making the case for the football club that we now own to take a rational and clear-headed decisions to build a club that is best-equipped to survive in the long term, rather than making the same, foolish, short-termist mistakes that led us to the brink of oblivion under the Raes. Unless the mindset of fans changes to reflect that reality, I fear for the long-term future of the ownership model and the club itself.

Edited by vikingTON
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, virginton said:

So your desire for continuity involves retain jobbers then.

No. Read the post. Some kind of continuity is provided by retaining a core of players - eight or so - if you can afford to keep them.

1 minute ago, virginton said:

Half a dozen better players than whom? All the players that you're desperate to keep, only one - Nesbitt - represented any sort of coup in the market. The others who were signed were either not in favour at a club or a gamble like McWilliams. What exactly is there to prevent a competent manager from doing the same and better business in the transfer market, than Hopkin's ten attacking midfielders disaster last summer? 

Eh, better than the eight or so you keep.

Otherwise you’re trying to sign almost an entire squad that’s better than what we have. There’s no evidence over the past few years to suggest we’re able to do that, whoever the manager is. Hopkin was just a worse version of what we saw with Duffy and Johansson.

We’re not getting Stewart Petrie. And, even if we did, we’re not signing two players who are better in their positions than Nesbitt or Oliver (about whom, btw, we’ve been saying for years ‘no point in playing him if you’re just going to shell it long to him’. Last night was just more proof of that.)

2 minutes ago, virginton said:

Scorched earth suggests that there is something valuable being sacrificed. We finished 9th in a piss-poor Championship so no, that's not the case at all.

Just because we won a playoff does not make the campaign acceptable. The squad needs to be broken up and if we don't learn that lesson and be absolutely ruthless about this then there will be no such second chance next May. 

The campaign was unsuccessful, clearly. We had three managers, one of whom was a fitness coach, the first of whom, as you rightly say, assembled a ridiculous squad, which made it near impossible for his successors.

That doesn’t mean the whole of that squad was useless, though, does it? What’s difficult to grasp about retaining the best bits (if you can) and building around it?

Rather than repeating the desperate scramble of recent years that gave us that squad in the first place?

21 minutes ago, virginton said:

^^^ verge of tears

I will never stop making the case for the football club that we now own to take a rational and clear-headed to build a club that is best-equipped to survive in the long term, rather than making the same, foolish, short-term mistakes that led us to the brink of oblivion under the Raes. Unless the mindset of fans changes to reflect that reality, I fear for the long-term future of the ownership model and the club itself.

I’ll take the attempt to deflect with a daft wee cliche as an admission of guilt.

You had us relegated, you actively wanted us relegated - just let that sink in - and you were wrong on both counts.

If you think the ‘rational and clear-headed’ option is to build a part-time squad on part-time money - maybe something like the Airdrie squad we saw last night? - I can’t help you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

No. Read the post. Some kind of continuity is provided by retaining a core of players - eight or so - if you can afford to keep them.

Eh, better than the eight or so you keep.

What eight players do I keep? 

You've already admitted that the players who might make up a core for next season will be off, so the eight that you will in fact be picking from are ones who impressed nobody in their dung performances all season. 

Spoiler

Otherwise you’re trying to sign almost an entire squad that’s better than what we have. There’s no evidence over the past few years to suggest we’re able to do that, whoever the manager is. Hopkin was just a worse version of what we saw with Duffy and Johansson.

Wrong again. The last time we had such an utterly shambolic campaign was in 2013/14 and Jim Duffy was tasked with building a new team with an almost complete clean slate afterwards. Despite a lot of gums bumped about how terrible it was to only have three signed players, he was able to sign a more than capable team: the core of which served us for the next four years.

We would not have been better off for keeping Darren Cole, David Robertson and a bunch of other utter shite on the books to provide 'continuity', which is the nonsense you are actually peddling. 

Quote

We’re not getting Stewart Petrie. And, even if we did, we’re not signing two players who are better in their positions than Nesbitt or Oliver (about whom, btw, we’ve been saying for years ‘no point in playing him if you’re just going to shell it long to him’. Last night was just more proof of that.)

I didn't say we would appoint Stewart Petrie: learn to read. And the rest of that is simply a groundless assertion. Indeed we already did sign better than Nesbitt in the same transfer window: Nicky Cadden. Who moved on to an English club because he actually delivered an end product. So you're talking utter pish then.

Quote

 

The campaign was unsuccessful, clearly. We had three managers, one of whom was a fitness coach, the first of whom, as you rightly say, assembled a ridiculous squad, which made it near impossible for his successors.

That doesn’t mean the whole of that squad was useless, though, does it? What’s difficult to grasp about retaining the best bits (if you can) and building around it?

 

The best bits of our squad do not include Gary Oliver and Aidan Nesbitt. 

Quote

If you think the ‘rational and clear-headed’ option is to build a part-time squad on part-time money - maybe something like the Airdrie squad we saw last night? - I can’t help you.

Then all the posts from this thread six months ago when the club was on the brink were clearly crocodile tears then. Because when push comes to shove, the same folk now think that if only we stay full-time and in the Championship then sustainability will magically appear over the horizon. The same attitude that the Rae's had. The same attitude that saw us run up £2.8 million of losses (and the rest) and register one single year of break-even while in the promised land. 

If that's going to remain the idiotic short-termist mindset at and around GMFC then fan ownership will fail and we will not have a club to support third time round. 

Edited by vikingTON
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, virginton said:

What eight players do I keep? 

You've already admitted that the players who might make up a core for next season will be off, so the eight that you will in fact be picking from are ones who impressed nobody in their dung performances all season. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Otherwise you’re trying to sign almost an entire squad that’s better than what we have. There’s no evidence over the past few years to suggest we’re able to do that, whoever the manager is. Hopkin was just a worse version of what we saw with Duffy and Johansson.

Wrong again. The last time we had such an utterly shambolic campaign was in 2013/14 and Jim Duffy was tasked with building a new team with an almost complete clean slate afterwards. Despite a lot of gums bumped about how terrible it was to only have three signed players, he was able to sign a more than capable team: the core of which served us for the next four years.

We would not have been better off for keeping Darren Cole, David Robertson and a bunch of other utter shite on the books to provide 'continuity'.

Read the posts. I’ve listed them, twice.

And I haven’t admitted we won’t keep them; I’ve acknowledged that we might not be able to keep them.

Nowhere have I suggested that, if we can’t sign the ones we want to retain, we sign some of the others to make up the numbers.

There’s far more chance of ending up with the shite you mention if we start from scratch. Just because Duffy managed it, once, in League 1 is no guarantee it will happen again (cf. Hopkin, David).

 

9 minutes ago, virginton said:

I didn't say we would appoint Stewart Petrie: learn to read. And the rest of that is simply a groundless assertion. Indeed we already did sign better than Nesbitt in the same transfer window: Nicky Cadden. Who moved on to an English club because he actually delivered an end product. So you're talking utter pish then.

The best bits of our squad do not include Gary Oliver and Aidan Nesbitt. 

Stewart Petrie or some similar up-and-coming p/t manager who’ll miraculously put together a squad from scratch.

And I said two players. Nicky Cadden was always miles better than Nesbitt, but they both played.

Are we going to sign two Nicky Caddens? No.

Are we going to sign one Nicky Cadden? Very probably not.

Are we going to sign two players in Nesbitt’s position who are better than him? Almost certainly not.

Less fussed about Oliver, but same principle applies.

If that’s your judgement of players in a realistic context, maybe you should be the manager, then you’d certainly get your wish to see us relegated.

25 minutes ago, virginton said:

Then all the posts from this thread six months ago when the club was on the brink were clearly crocodile tears then. Because when push comes to shove, the same folk now think that if only we stay full-time and in the Championship then sustainability will magically appear over the horizon. The same attitude that the Rae's had. The same attitude that saw us run up £2.8 million of losses (and the rest) and register one single year of break-even while in the promised land. 

If that's going to remain the idiotic short-termist mindset at and around GMFC then fan ownership will fail and we will not have a club to support third time round. 

We got a 500k grant from the government... which you insisted could not and should not happen.

Nobody believes in magic, but most people believe MCT are not the Raes and will not - because they cannot - behave in the same way. The whole undertaking will be judged on performance over the next year or so... not on assumptions carried over from the past.

What’s absolutely clear is that starting that job from the Championship is better than being in League One; and that some degree of continuity will help us get moving.

Stop arguing for the sake of arguing. You were wrong and it’s time to accept that and move on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

There’s far more chance of ending up with the shite you mention if we start from scratch. Just because Duffy managed it, once, in League 1 is no guarantee it will happen again (cf. Hopkin, David).

Except that two minutes ago you were claiming it was impossible to effectively rebuild and only now that there's a 1/1 success rate pointed out are you trying to shift the goalposts to claim that there are no guarantees. No shit Sherlock!

Quote

 

And I said two players. Nicky Cadden was always miles better than Nesbitt, but they both played.

Are we going to sign two Nicky Caddens? No.

Are we going to sign one Nicky Cadden? Very probably not.

Are we going to sign two players in Nesbitt’s position who are better than him? Almost certainly not.

 

You initially claimed that we couldn't possibly sign a player better than Nesbitt in his position. We did in the same transfer window under similar conditions to right now.

It's really not my fault that your argument does not stand up to the slightest scrutiny. 

Quote

If that’s your judgement of players in a realistic context, maybe you should be the manager, then you’d certainly get your wish to see us relegated.

Still, at least you're taking it well. 

Quote

 

Nobody believes in magic, but most people believe MCT are not the Raes and will not - because they cannot - behave in the same way. The whole undertaking will be judged on performance over the next year or so... not on assumptions carried over from the past.

What’s absolutely clear is that starting that job from the Championship is better than being in League One; and that some degree of continuity will help us get moving.

 

Birthday caird pish. Douglas Rae started off with very similar intentions for the club as any other fan had. The mistakes that were accumulated under his watch could just as easily occur under fan ownership. This is why medium and long-term planning needs to be front and centre of the club going forward, to avoid similar mistakes being made for the same reasons, only under a different set of blazers. If that happens, it's curtains for this club as a viable outfit in Scottish football no matter what league we begin from.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, madton said:

Would you have said that at the end of the league campaign?  I'm guessing no.

We can't hand out deals based on one moment of magic or one good performance in 25.  I'm guessing we will go with around 16-18 senior players with Hynes etc as backup.  

Overall, he has been  horrendous for us. He may well go on and do it elsewhere  but he's had his chance, never took it and needs to move on.

Of course I would have said no. He was offering us nothing in games. 

I just feel he looked a player who turned a corner over the last 2 games. The boy could have been lacking in confidence and self belief. 

Playing like he did and scoring goals, especially the wonder goal, would hopefully given him that confidence back. 

I would hate to see him end up  at another Championship club playing like the player he can be. That's why I feel another 6 month deal is fair to both parties. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Colkitto said:

Of course I would have said no. He was offering us nothing in games. 

I just feel he looked a player who turned a corner over the last 2 games. The boy could have been lacking in confidence and self belief. 

Playing like he did and scoring goals, especially the wonder goal, would hopefully given him that confidence back. 

I would hate to see him end up  at another Championship club playing like the player he can be. That's why I feel another 6 month deal is fair to both parties. 

He scored a belter against East Fife and then never kicked  on. I get the sentiment but he's been here for 2 seasons and bar the last 24 hours, he's been mostly awful. (Thought he was pretty hopeless on Tuesday too, offered nothing until he scored).

26 league appearances for us, 1 goal.

He might well do something elsewhere,  I said that on the forum but doesn't mean we should give him a contract  just to avoid that possibly but most likely not happening. 

Smaller, better quality squad must be the target and he can't be part of that 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Surely you just give the manager's job to virginton? He knows exactly how to fix everything.

Can just see him on the touchline, arguing like fcuk with EVERYONE, telling the ref to be 'very specific' as to why he's getting sent to the stand, and flashing up memes on a laptop.

That'll work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, Tri-TON said:

With Petrie looking like he's heading to the Pars I wonder who will be taking the reigns next season.

Is Darren Young still doing alright? He was tipped a wee while back.

Sure I saw he signed a new deal with East Fife the other week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Young's teams (particularly their usual end of season fade into midtable) look as uninspiring as his performances for us as a player. He's clearly not incompetent but not someone I'd be going for even if he were available for free.

Edited by vikingTON
Link to comment
Share on other sites

VT There is no chance of MCT making the same mistakes as Douglas Rae .and I believe they won't. (A) Because they don't have the money to throw at it. & (B) They will be willing to get inward investment into the club a thing under the old regime was a closed shop apart from maybe the Easdales. I have read your recent posts and in the main you are right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...