Dundee vs Greenock Morten

[Ludo*1]

1 hour ago, Toby said:

Embarrassing interview from Hopkin. Of course none of us know what the Dundee bench actually said or did, but it doesn’t excuse Muirhead’s behaviour under any circumstances, and Hopkin’s words are trying to provide mitigation for him behaving like an absolute tool. I’d much rather he concentrated on the behaviour of his players than that of opposition benches. I very much doubt too many are fooled.

If it happens to another team, it’s difficult to disagree. The saving grace is the one match ban though, hopefully we never see him in a Morton shirt again.

I'm just more shocked than anything. Hopkin has largely been an inoffensive character throughout my time watching football (or if he's not been, it's largely passed me by). He seems to have had a proper head's gone or your club has made it their mission to just blast out a party line of propaganda thinking your fans will just buy into it.

From that clip of Muirhead, you can hear most of the reaction. At best you can hear a, 'Hoooooo!' when Muirhead claps the ref and a 'Wayyyyy' but is that what he's alleging influenced the ref? Desperate stuff and the players on the park aren't doing anything despite him making allegations against the players too.

[Toby]

49 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

I'm just more shocked than anything. Hopkin has largely been an inoffensive character throughout my time watching football (or if he's not been, it's largely passed me by). He seems to have had a proper head's gone or your club has made it their mission to just blast out a party line of propaganda thinking your fans will just buy into it.

From that clip of Muirhead, you can hear most of the reaction. At best you can hear a, 'Hoooooo!' when Muirhead claps the ref and a 'Wayyyyy' but is that what he's alleging influenced the ref? Desperate stuff and the players on the park aren't doing anything despite him making allegations against the players too.

Problem is, if you’re going to feed your supporters that sort of pish, you’ve really got to be in a position of trust with them. There aren’t exactly protests calling for the guy’s head, but Jürgen Klopp at Anfield he ain’t. I don’t know who he’s kidding if he thinks the fans hang on his every word.

I don’t expect him to go out and publicly slaughter his player, but his deflection is almost defending the indefensible. He should be making it clear that that sort of behaviour isn’t acceptable and won’t be tolerated, particularly at a club that is very quick to tell their support that every penny’s a prisoner, rather than making excuses for players being forced to sit in the stand as a result of their own stupidity.

Admittedly I’m not Hopkin’s biggest fan, though. I made the point on the Morton forum that our only red card in about 2 years was Jacobs against yourselves at Cappielow in February and now we’ve had two reds, both for second bookings in two games without a tackle being made. Discipline seems to be a problem that’s just arisen this season, and isn’t helped by him also picking up a booking for dissent from the dug out on Saturday.

Edited October 26, 2020 by Toby

[Ludo*1]

Propaganda continues - Rather selective editing perhaps?

 

[Dunning1874]

11 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

I'm just more shocked than anything. Hopkin has largely been an inoffensive character throughout my time watching football (or if he's not been, it's largely passed me by). He seems to have had a proper head's gone or your club has made it their mission to just blast out a party line of propaganda thinking your fans will just buy into it.

From that clip of Muirhead, you can hear most of the reaction. At best you can hear a, 'Hoooooo!' when Muirhead claps the ref and a 'Wayyyyy' but is that what he's alleging influenced the ref? Desperate stuff and the players on the park aren't doing anything despite him making allegations against the players too.

Hopkin loves to talk up/defend some players or the team as a whole in public when he isn't necessarily saying the same thing privately. In the context of criticism of their performances and trying to manage their confidence that's fine, although how effective it is can be debated; I don't see the benefit of telling the team they controlled the game and deserved to win on Saturday when that's clearly deluded and we need to address our toothless attack rather than pretending we're brilliant.

Doing the same thing over an issue like this though (assuming he doesn't actually believe a word he's saying and has gone through Muirhead privately) is just daft. You don't need to have a go at Muirhead in the press if you're getting the message to him to his face, but having a go at officials and opposition staff when everyone can see that is entirely the fault of Robbie Muirhead both makes him look ridiculous and lets Muirhead off the hook.

He should be castigated for his indiscipline and told he won't be near the team for weeks. Preferably he'll never be near the team again anyway because he's shite, but that's a different issue. Instead the manager is making excuses for him, getting himself in bother with the referee as well and saying that this idiotic indiscipline is someone else's fault, really. That's not an acceptable message to send when, as Toby says, we've had two red cards in two games and three of the four bookings have been brainless.

The alternative is that Hopkin actually believes what he's saying, which I don't want to consider.

[The Master]

12 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

From that clip of Muirhead, you can hear most of the reaction. At best you can hear a, 'Hoooooo!' when Muirhead claps the ref and a 'Wayyyyy' but is that what he's alleging influenced the ref? Desperate stuff and the players on the park aren't doing anything despite him making allegations against the players too.

The ref reacted as soon as Muirhead started clapping. There wasn't any time for anyone else to influence the decision before he'd already made it.

[port-ton]

It never won't be funny.

Absolutely love that moment in situations like this where they think they're Billy big bollocks and then they have the sudden realisation that they hold absolutely zero power.

[Ludo*1]

Expected McPake to come out swinging with a rebuttal but he's been pretty respectful towards Hopkin and I think his comments are fair (The headline makes it sound like he's about to be controversial):

https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/he-clearly-didnt-watch-the-game-that-we-all-watched-dundee-boss-james-mcpake-rejects-morton-manager-david-hopkins-view-of-weekend-clash/