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The Greenock Morton Thread - It's Better Than Yours


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When you watch Morton this season you get the feeling they still haven't fully gelled yet as a team. JJ has played almost the same group of players with the same formation so it's not as if it's down to constantly changing things around. Yet they play as if they're strangers to each other at times and sometimes it all fits in to place - really weird.

JJ appointment was always a gamble. But one I agreed with at the time. For me, his tenure at the club will depend on where we finish this season and that will be down to what players he can bring in at the transfer window.

The Jekyll & Hyde performances are ruining our season. We have absolutely no consistency with this group of players. JJ and Houston must surely know what's required and act accordingly.  

 

 

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2 hours ago, Stellaboz said:
3 hours ago, Gaz FFC said:
Well certainly no wanting 1 with a club that has 1200 fans and nae roof on the away end.
Come back once you've addressed these issues

At least they've got stands all round the pitch.

"stands" aye?????

Someone explain stands to him please

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The same Falkirk fans, who can barely keep a dry eye when they think of Brockville, having a go at another club's stadium is quite the brass neck considering their current generic Legoland stadium in Grangemouth required a hot tub on a chain to give it any character.

 
The hot tub wasn't on a chain. You've merged 2 gimmicks there. Mon tae f**k.
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On 03/12/2018 at 11:28, Colkitto said:

When you watch Morton this season you get the feeling they still haven't fully gelled yet as a team. JJ has played almost the same group of players with the same formation so it's not as if it's down to constantly changing things around. Yet they play as if they're strangers to each other at times and sometimes it all fits in to place - really weird.

JJ appointment was always a gamble. But one I agreed with at the time. For me, his tenure at the club will depend on where we finish this season and that will be down to what players he can bring in at the transfer window.

The Jekyll & Hyde performances are ruining our season. We have absolutely no consistency with this group of players. JJ and Houston must surely know what's required and act accordingly.  

 

 

See, in his first few games he was entirely willing to chop and change the formation, we were cycling through 4-4-2, 4-1-4-1 and 4-3-3/4-5-1 from week to week. Despite meaning an unsettled team I initially thought you could view it as an encouraging sign - it suggested a willingness to adapt as he learned about the squad and try to deal with their weaknesses. So after we conceded five for a second time after only six games in charge, he switched to the 5-3-2/3-5-2 to try to shore up the defence, and it worked with two consecutive wins.

Now that we've had that formation for a few games and teams are aware that we're going to play it, it's only confirming suspicions that he stumbled on the formation by accident and when he comes up against a manager who sets up specifically to exploit or counteract it he doesn't have a clue what to do. Goodwin absolutely schooled him by outnumbering us in midfield in a 2-0 defeat where the scoreline flattered us and his substitutions only made it worse, Dunfermline tore the defence apart, even Jim fucking McInally got the better of him for 45 minutes. There's no sign of how he wants the team to play coming through in their performances and there's little sign of him changing things for the better during games.

While he's clearly capable of insightful analysis of what problems we have, there's no indication that he knows how to fix it, or at least to get that message through to the players. His willingness to change formations masked it because he didn't have a dogmatic attachment to, but it's looking increasingly like he's just James Grady without the refusal to deviate from 4-4-2. He's sending the team out with a formation but no gameplan, or at least if he has one the players don't understand it and show no signs of carrying his instructions out, whatever they are. What style of football are we actually supposed to be playing, how are we adapting our performances based on the opposition?

Obviously he's only 13 games in and maybe this is all part of him having to learn on the job having taken over during the season, none of it means he's going to be a terrible manager in the long term and while his results aren't acceptable so far they're good enough to say that he's not a Tommy Craig or Willie McStay level dud, but there's also no indication that he's actually a manager so far. If he's capable of making that improvement as he learns we really need it to happen soon though, we can't wait months for him to get better. We need results in the next four games to keep a comfortable distance from the bottom two; another comfortable defeat on Saturday followed by losing at Falkirk would have things looking bleak.

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55 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

See, in his first few games he was entirely willing to chop and change the formation, we were cycling through 4-4-2, 4-1-4-1 and 4-3-3/4-5-1 from week to week. Despite meaning an unsettled team I initially thought you could view it as an encouraging sign - it suggested a willingness to adapt as he learned about the squad and try to deal with their weaknesses. So after we conceded five for a second time after only six games in charge, he switched to the 5-3-2/3-5-2 to try to shore up the defence, and it worked with two consecutive wins.

Now that we've had that formation for a few games and teams are aware that we're going to play it, it's only confirming suspicions that he stumbled on the formation by accident and when he comes up against a manager who sets up specifically to exploit or counteract it he doesn't have a clue what to do. Goodwin absolutely schooled him by outnumbering us in midfield in a 2-0 defeat where the scoreline flattered us and his substitutions only made it worse, Dunfermline tore the defence apart, even Jim fucking McInally got the better of him for 45 minutes. There's no sign of how he wants the team to play coming through in their performances and there's little sign of him changing things for the better during games.

While he's clearly capable of insightful analysis of what problems we have, there's no indication that he knows how to fix it, or at least to get that message through to the players. His willingness to change formations masked it because he didn't have a dogmatic attachment to, but it's looking increasingly like he's just James Grady without the refusal to deviate from 4-4-2. He's sending the team out with a formation but no gameplan, or at least if he has one the players don't understand it and show no signs of carrying his instructions out, whatever they are. What style of football are we actually supposed to be playing, how are we adapting our performances based on the opposition?

Obviously he's only 13 games in and maybe this is all part of him having to learn on the job having taken over during the season, none of it means he's going to be a terrible manager in the long term and while his results aren't acceptable so far they're good enough to say that he's not a Tommy Craig or Willie McStay level dud, but there's also no indication that he's actually a manager so far. If he's capable of making that improvement as he learns we really need it to happen soon though, we can't wait months for him to get better. We need results in the next four games to keep a comfortable distance from the bottom two; another comfortable defeat on Saturday followed by losing at Falkirk would have things looking bleak.

He has stated in many an interview that his first priority was to make us hard to beat.  After couple of heavy drubbings he packed the defence in move to keep things tight and hasn't really changed it from there on in.

We now really only play the one formation regardless of who we are playing. The Alloa game showed he will not change, even in a game like that when it was crying out for change.

I think one of the big things he's said and many people have not really picked up on it was when he said he couldn't trust some players. That's quite a thing to say!

We obviously have problems within the squad or he simply just doesn't rate some of them. Houston has made similar comments of "we didn't sign those players" or words to that effect.

It's hard to judge a manager when it's not his squad and he's working with players he doesn't rate or sign.

Like most supporters I'll judge him after the transfer window in January, albeit I'm getting very frustrated with the performances  

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11 hours ago, Dunning1874 said:

See, in his first few games he was entirely willing to chop and change the formation, we were cycling through 4-4-2, 4-1-4-1 and 4-3-3/4-5-1 from week to week. Despite meaning an unsettled team I initially thought you could view it as an encouraging sign - it suggested a willingness to adapt as he learned about the squad and try to deal with their weaknesses. So after we conceded five for a second time after only six games in charge, he switched to the 5-3-2/3-5-2 to try to shore up the defence, and it worked with two consecutive wins.

Now that we've had that formation for a few games and teams are aware that we're going to play it, it's only confirming suspicions that he stumbled on the formation by accident and when he comes up against a manager who sets up specifically to exploit or counteract it he doesn't have a clue what to do. Goodwin absolutely schooled him by outnumbering us in midfield in a 2-0 defeat where the scoreline flattered us and his substitutions only made it worse, Dunfermline tore the defence apart, even Jim fucking McInally got the better of him for 45 minutes. There's no sign of how he wants the team to play coming through in their performances and there's little sign of him changing things for the better during games.

While he's clearly capable of insightful analysis of what problems we have, there's no indication that he knows how to fix it, or at least to get that message through to the players. His willingness to change formations masked it because he didn't have a dogmatic attachment to, but it's looking increasingly like he's just James Grady without the refusal to deviate from 4-4-2. He's sending the team out with a formation but no gameplan, or at least if he has one the players don't understand it and show no signs of carrying his instructions out, whatever they are. What style of football are we actually supposed to be playing, how are we adapting our performances based on the opposition?

Obviously he's only 13 games in and maybe this is all part of him having to learn on the job having taken over during the season, none of it means he's going to be a terrible manager in the long term and while his results aren't acceptable so far they're good enough to say that he's not a Tommy Craig or Willie McStay level dud, but there's also no indication that he's actually a manager so far. If he's capable of making that improvement as he learns we really need it to happen soon though, we can't wait months for him to get better. We need results in the next four games to keep a comfortable distance from the bottom two; another comfortable defeat on Saturday followed by losing at Falkirk would have things looking bleak.

I agree with a lot of that, but I think you're skirting round the main issue: Johansson clearly wanted to play 4-4-2 when he came in, quickly realised we don't have the players to do that effectively, and arrived at the 3-5-2 as the only way to get two up with this squad, give Tidser the support he needs in the middle, and protect shaky full-backs and centre-halves. You're right that he doesn't currently know what else to do, but I genuinely think that's more about the players available than him. You're also right that decent managers will clock exactly what we're going to do, so we'll only get straightforward wins when cocks like Caldwell hand them to us... but again, there are very few options available until he can change some of the personnel.

The Grady comparison is harsh: sure, there's no concrete evidence that there's definitely a manager in there... but folk already saying there's definitely _not_ are jumping the gun.

9 hours ago, Colkitto said:

He has stated in many an interview that his first priority was to make us hard to beat.  After couple of heavy drubbings he packed the defence in move to keep things tight and hasn't really changed it from there on in.

We now really only play the one formation regardless of who we are playing. The Alloa game showed he will not change, even in a game like that when it was crying out for change.

I think one of the big things he's said and many people have not really picked up on it was when he said he couldn't trust some players. That's quite a thing to say!

We obviously have problems within the squad or he simply just doesn't rate some of them. Houston has made similar comments of "we didn't sign those players" or words to that effect.

It's hard to judge a manager when it's not his squad and he's working with players he doesn't rate or sign.

Like most supporters I'll judge him after the transfer window in January, albeit I'm getting very frustrated with the performances  

Again, agree: his interview after Dunfermline was as clear as Mourinho was earlier tonight... doesn't rate or trust a number of the players he inherited (although, in Mourinho's case, also some he signed himself).

If he gets to shuffle two or three in January and the players he brings in are no better than what we've got and/or don't help him solve the problem with shape, meaning we're still wildly inconsistent (or worse) through February and into March... then we can make a judgment about whether we've got a manager or not.

Between now and then the only real tests are a. can we continue finding a performance immediately after a shocker; and b. can he get a team out to spank McArsehole's 'rejuvenated' Fa'kirk... these are also things managers are made of.

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On 12/5/2018 at 16:55, Colkitto said:

Like most supporters I'll judge him after the transfer window in January, albeit I'm getting very frustrated with the performances  

He's getting judged now in every single game. If you think that he's somehow got a free pass until February then you've not been paying attention. 

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