The Greenock Morton Thread - It's Better Than Yours

[Scosha]

The Easdales are involved, they’ve got one of their managers of their own company in as one of the directors and are at every home game. I can’t see how they personally can influence Duffy at the moment though as we’ve already got Hawke etc running it (or trying to). 

If he is indeed away, I hope he leaves on good terms and there’s no ill feeling towards the club. He’s had a disaster this season but every other year he’s done well (play-offs aside last season). 

[IainMorton]

8 minutes ago, Scosha said:

The Easdales are involved, they’ve got one of their managers of their own company in as one of the directors and are at every home game. I can’t see how they personally can influence Duffy at the moment though as we’ve already got Hawke etc running it (or trying to). 

If he is indeed away, I hope he leaves on good terms and there’s no ill feeling towards the club. He’s had a disaster this season but every other year he’s done well (play-offs aside last season). 

Yep. While I had a pop at him on other threads for his useless tactics and mis-use of our best players in the last three months, I have no personal issues with the guy. He's given us a lot to smile about over the past three/four years, Including our first semi in over 35 years (ahem...). I will certainly applaud him tomorrow if it is indeed his last game in charge.

I'm more interested, though, with the link to the Easdales in this story. Does this mean changes are afoot at boardroom level?

[Scosha]

11 minutes ago, IainMorton said:

Yep. While I had a pop at him on other threads for his useless tactics and mis-use of our best players in the last three months, I have no personal issues with the guy. He's given us a lot to smile about over the past three/four years, Including our first semi in over 35 years (ahem...). I will certainly applaud him tomorrow if it is indeed his last game in charge.

I'm more interested, though, with the link to the Easdales in this story. Does this mean changes are afoot at boardroom level?

There’s been a lot of changes at boardroom level in the past couple of years. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was influenced by the Easdales if they are interested in buying. The thing that needs changed most is the owners. We are going absolutely nowhere with the Rae’s still involved. 

[Dunning1874]

I'll begin by saying that this could easily be bollocks because while he does have some interesting things to say Tam McManus doesn't always come across as credible in the #ITK stakes, and this could be a case of him swinging and missing.

The number of replies to his tweet talking about Jim Duffy doing an incredible job say a lot about how much attention people pay to this division: one League Cup run does not make a manager great. Reasonable shouts for incredible jobs in this division in the last 10 years are Ian Murray at Dumbarton, Jack Ross at St Mirren and David Hopkin at Livingston. If you go any further and get to Neilson and Archibald you're getting close to Peter Houston and John McGlynn territory and that's fucking silly. I've digressed, but when you think about Morton's position in Scottish football and where we've been under Duffy calling the job he's done incredible is fucking ridiculous. The majority of Morton fans will be ecstatic to see him go.

When the dust settles Duffy will be viewed with hindsight as a manager who essentially performed to par three times then fell short once, which puts him above most Rae era managers who were at best the other way round, most never doing a good job at all. He's one of the best, or perhaps more accurately least bad, of the last 20 years. This doesn't make him unimpeachable and says more about the rest of our managers than him.

I've said before that failing to make the playoffs this season wasn't necessarily a sackable offence for a Morton manager but failing to make it in the manner we have? That's absolutely a sackable offence. Without going into detail because this post is going to be long enough already and the detail is for a proper end of season dissection of what went wrong this time, he had a winning team that had us comfortably waltzing into third place at worst, he abandoned it for no apparent reason and refused to change it back when it was clear that we were falling apart. No one can say that's someone else's fault, no one can say he didn't have the tools at his disposal, no one can offer any kind of defence of his decisions over the last two months. His position is untenable and he should be gone by Monday at the latest.

[ATLIS]

Could Morton actually tempt Hopkin? Out of contract in the summer

[TheGoon]

7 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

Could Morton actually tempt Hopkin? Out of contract in the summer

I’d be pretty surprised if we did.

[Dee Man]

On 26/04/2018 at 05:41, IainMorton said:

Good to see Ant has quickly put his drink-driving woes behind him. 

[sergie's no1 fan]

Or Alex Rae?

Nope an actual Rangers (rip) legend.

This could be hilarious.

[Dunning1874]

I get the connection, but even considering it I really don't see why people assume the Easdales taking over would mean McCoist in charge. Is there any indication they even had a good relationship at Rangers? Was it not their board which placed him on gardening leave? In any case, if they ever do take over then appointing him would guarantee failure of their tenure from the outset; why bother?

Edited April 28, 2018 by Dunning1874

[sergie's no1 fan]

I get the connection, but even considering it I really don't see why people assume the Easdales taking over would mean McCoist in charge. Is there any indication they even had a good relationship at Rangers? Was it not their board which placed him on gardening leave? In any case, if they ever do take over then appointing him would guarantee failure of their tenure from the outset; why bother?

I think the Easdales were hated just as much as McCoist at Ibrox, maybe they had to do it to try take the heat off them, who knows.

Just rumours obviously but if Duffy leaves I know who I'm putting my money on getting the gig.

[sergie's no1 fan]

To be honest I don't know what would concern me more, i wouldn't want they guys calling the shots behind the scenes let alone own the club.

Maybe time for Ton fans to start a supporter bid, although with the infighting on the forums ect.

[Rudolph Hucker]

2 hours ago, sergie's no1 fan said:

To be honest I don't know what would concern me more, i wouldn't want they guys calling the shots behind the scenes let alone own the club.

Maybe time for Ton fans to start a supporter bid, although with the infighting on the forums ect.

The infighting on forums counts for nothing; that's a couple of dozen fuds at best/worst and the vast majority of the support don't even know those guys exist. Or that those board does. I doubt though whether there's enough strong feeling or backing for any kind of supporter bid. Certainly not at this point, anyway.

Edited April 28, 2018 by Rudolph Hucker

[The Champions Erect]

I don’t think Baird has been as bad as some make out. He had a couple of poor games at the start but the last few he’s looked ok and scored a few goals. Wouldn’t like to see us sign him next season though. 
I think Oliver playing behind an actual goal scorer would be very good. Hope Duffy can find one as that’s 2 seasons in a row where our forwards don’t score many goals. 

Sutton will be away from us after today and would fit your style of play i think.
As witnessed last sat with your goal, you have wingers who seem to be decent at hitting the byeline and whipping a few good balls in. Big Sutts would put a few away for you.

As much as a player going to your rivals would be hard to see. It would probably suit both parties. Youd get a good year maybe 2 out of him and may suit Oliver and free him up a bit.

Plus your boys would be able to pose for pics holding the champs medal etc inspirational stuff and so on.

[purplemonkeydishwasher]

[sergie's no1 fan]

The infighting on forums counts for nothing; that's a couple of dozen funds at best/worst and they vast majority of the support don' even know those guys exist. Or that those board does. I doubt though whether there's enough strong feeling or backing for any kind of supporter bid. Certainly not at this point, anyway

I'd have said this is about the time Morton need more of a vocal say from fans. If Rae is to step down there is a host of questions to be asked.

Having a look on here and the Morton forum there is a hint of disbelief at how we turned our mess around, lethargy, bewilderment at your own downfall.

What will it take for it to change? Morton fans are vocal enough about changing the board ect but are you's willing to just let the Easdales run it? What about the debt? Manager? Playing squad? What's the strategy? Someone is going to have to come up with something for the fans to buy into.

[Colkitto]

Would be sad to see big Tam going. He's been a great servant to the Club and I for one wish him well

[IainMorton]

Disappointing as he is one of our better players and has scored important goals in the last 3/4 years. People have been having a go at him due to his “poor distribution”, again this is not down to Tam himself but rather his team mates not showing for the ball when we are looking to play out from the back and this is why we have to resort to hoofing it up the park.

[Scosha]

7 minutes ago, sergie's no1 fan said:

Someone is going to have to come up with something for the fans to buy into.

 

That’s what we’re after. We’re going nowhere with the current regime in charge. First season I won’t be buying a season ticket unless someone gives me a good enough reason to do it. Many of the ‘hardcore’ fans are chucking it as well. 

[Dunning1874]

In honour of Rafa, some facts about our collapse this season and Jim Duffy's contribution to it.

On February 25th, after a run of six wins and one draw in seven games (four wins out of five in the league), we had played 25 games. We were one point ahead of Dundee United, although they had two games in hand. Six points clear of Dunfermline and Queen of the South having played the same number of games. Eleven points clear of Inverness Caledonian Thistle with them having one game in hand. These are facts.

Over the course of ten games since we've seen a five point swing to Queen of the South, a nine point swing to Dundee United, a twelve point swing to Dunfermline and a fifteen point swing to ICT. These are facts.

In the entirely likely event that Queen of the South beat Brechin & ICT beat Morton today both sides will finish above Morton, who will finish the season in seventh place. All of those sides who were trailing in our wake merely two months ago will finish above us, one of them with an eighteen point swing over that period.

How did we find ourselves in this position? We can go back to the beginning of that run of six wins in seven, a 2-1 win at Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup. On that day the team set up in a 4-4-1-1 formation as follows:

Gaston

Doyle - O'Ware - Gasparotto - Iredale

Tidser - Murdoch - Harkins - Ross

Tiffoney

Oliver

We had the same starting XI and system for the next three games, 3-0 v Dundee Utd & 2-1 v Dunfermline in the league and 3-0 v Dumbarton in the Scottish Cup. We had found a system and starting eleven that was working. These are facts.

We then kept the same shape but made two changes to the starting eleven for the 1-1 draw with Queen of the South, Russell in for Tidser and McHugh in for Tiffoney. 1-0 v Dumbarton again saw two changes, Tidser for Harkins and Lamie for Gasparotto, but the shape remained unchanged. The 2-0 win at Inverness, the seventh of those games, saw the return of the XI which started the run at Dunfermline with the exception of Lamie being in place of Gasparotto at centre back.

We had won six out of seven games, we had created a decent gap between ourselves and fifth place, and this winning run had taken us five points from second placed Livingston with three games remaining against them. In doing so we'd used the same system for all of those games and only had minor changes in personnel throughout that time. These are facts.

The logical thing to do then, if you're Jim Duffy, is to completely abandon that system and shoehorn players who had nothing to do with it into the team.

The run came to an end with a 1-0 midweek defeat at home to Livingston. We could speculate about Duffy's reasons for changing the team with a weekend cup tie approaching against Celtic which could earn him plaudits from his mates on Radio Clyde if plucky little Morton could put up a plucky little performance, but I'm not interested in speculation, I'm focusing on facts.

So for this massive game which could put us in two points of second place, three players who had been ever present in the winning run were dropped. Jack Iredale was replaced by youngster Lewis Strapp, making his first Morton appearance since August after being on loan at Elgin, Frank Ross was replaced on the left of midfield by natural left back Mark Russell, and Gary Oliver was replaced by new signing John Baird. Scott Tiffoney also dropped out for Bob McHugh as we played a flat 4-4-2. These are facts.

To the surprise of no one, we were absolutely shite, Baird and McHugh as a partnership didn't work and we lost all the intelligent movement and pressing of Oliver & Tiffoney, while we had no attacking width in the absence of the Iredale-Ross partnership on the left.

We obviously lost to Celtic despite the players being rested for our biggest game of the season at that point, as everyone knew we would. Our next game was away to Falkirk, where you'd think we'd move beyond resting players for inevitable defeats in the cup and get the best team back on the pitch.

No! Still no Iredale, still no Ross, still no Oliver. Still the McHugh & Baird partnership up front. 3-0 down after 30 minutes, we finally pulled one back in stoppage time. We made no substitutions in this game, with Duffy saying that he didn't change it because he "didn't want to give the players who'd put us in that position an easy way out". Clearly Jim doesn't understand the purpose of substitutions. These are facts.

Away to Livingston. The return of the 4-4-1-1 with Iredale, Ross, Oliver and Tiffoney all playing. Finally. For the first time, in our fourth meeting, we actually compete with Livingston rather than them comfortably being the better team. They go down to 10 men, we go 1-0 up in the 88th minute. The return of the 4-4-1-1 with all of our best players in it is just about delivering. Then in stoppage time, while 1-0 up, Jim Duffy takes off central midfielder Andy Murdoch and replaces him with centre forward John Baird. Livingston score in the 94th minute after a picking up a loose ball in central midfield, obviously.

The 4-4-1-1 continues v Dunfermline as we hold on for a 0-0, this time without a centre forward replacing a central midfielder as our opponents laid siege to our goal.

John Baird then comes into the team for Frank Ross against Brechin and scores twice. Because he's scored against Brechin, he is now UNDROPPABLE. He must start games. So he does. Against Dundee United we don't just have John Baird in the team, we have the return of the fucking 4-3--3 formation which Duffy started the season with and eventually had to chuck, accepting it was just too shite. We are devoid of creativity throughout, but scramble a 1-1 draw with a stoppage time own goal from a corner to equalise. A corner put in by Frank Ross coming off the bench, no less.

Every game that mattered after was 4-3-fucking-3. Another defeat to Livingston, scraping a win v Dumbarton, the defeat to Queen of the South that ended the season.

The collapse is entirely, 100% down to Jim Duffy deviating from a winning team. Six wins in seven turned into two wins in eleven purely because he decided to tinker. These are facts. That's nothing to do with the board, nothing to do with the mentality of the players, it's just a manager who doesn't know what he's doing.

His position is untenable. Fact.

 

[IainMorton]

https://gmfc.net/2018/04/28/from-the-office-of-the-chairman/

Edited April 28, 2018 by IainMorton