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First Quarter Thoughts


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59 minutes ago, jaggyness said:

As predicted after a few games we look very good going forward and very ropey at the back. We do seem to have improved there slightly though and if we can keep our first choice back 4 of Foster, Mayo, Akinola and Holt free from injury and suspension until January I would like to think we'll be in and around the top 4.

I'm presuming this is with Holt at LB. Thought I'd spotted him at centre back on occasion. Very decent LB at this level but never a centre back IMHO.

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17 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Depends on your definition of convincing. We were comfortably the better side and Morton's 2nd is ruled out any other week of the season for a foul on the keeper.

You weren't 'comfortably the better side' at all (this appears to be a running theme of your fanbase's rolling, Liverpool-esque sense of injustice) and the second goal wasn't ruled out. In any other week, we wouldn't have had a penalty awarded against us in our last home match against Arbroath. That's just how football works. 

Few other fanbases peddle this  laughable spin and simply accept that they are where they are for perfectly explicable reasons. 

Edited by vikingTON
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Shite. Gus McPherson is the worst manager Morton have ever had. If you telt me we could have Hopkin back tomorrow I'd go for it. I'd even take Hopkin and McGinty back if it meant binning McPherson. We are destined to finish bottom even with three or four other clubs stinking this league out with us.

The only way to make this season worse would be if we were captained by an overweight sex offender...

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I'm presuming this is with Holt at LB. Thought I'd spotted him at centre back on occasion. Very decent LB at this level but never a centre back IMHO.
Yes, we look better with him there. He looked one of our better centre halves but the current cb pairing are the best we can field at the moment. I would imagine we'll be looking to bring in another centre half in January
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22 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Todays team had 3 players under 21 starting and another 4 players who ARE 21. You dont think a team with 7 starters under 22 yrs old is young? Of the 4 over 21 , two are 24, neither of whom has played at Championship level before. The other two are Alex Cooper (29) and Wullie Gibson (37).

There's no doubt its a young team.

The Ayr team that started today had an average age of 23.6. With 6 who were 22 or under (19,20,21 & 3 x 22) Our oldest is Muirhead at 31 who pulls the average up a smidge but not to the same extent as Gibson will. Of the other 4 they are 2 x 25, 26 & 27.

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We are still in basketcase mode, a legacy of Hopkin and to a lesser extent, Kerr's recruitment and a chairman that is somewhere between visionary benefactor and despot. 

We are a couple of injuries away from catastrophe at any moment despite having a huge squad such is the imbalance oft he squad. 

Duffy has brought a calmness to the club we have been lacking since McCall left. I think we will be ok this season eventually but I don't think we will be in the promotion play-off hunt beyond March. 

Based on the first quarter

Inverness don't look like champions but somehow are opening a gap at the top of the league. I expect another team to win the league and they will be in the top 4 

Raith, like Inverness look like an average championship team over-performing. They will be top 4

Kilmarnock are here for a long time, not a good time. They signed a lot of good championship players but not a lot of players capable of getting them out of it, They will be top 4

Arbroath will hit a sticky spell, lose the majority of games onw quarter and drop in to the bottom 4, will stay up and be outside the bottom 2

Partick are a good, attacking team that will win more that they lose or draw, I think they lack quality in defence and will end up in or just outside the top 4 

Queen of the south, look a good team that lack a 20 goal forward or 2 10 goal a season forwards, 5th to 8th

Morton, won't go down, might be in the play-offs but wont go down

Dunfermline look a decent side that haven't clicked and lack confidence, either way, I think they will either click under Grant or he'll be away before Christmas and they will start to get results, 7-9th

Hamilton rely on youth and I don't think this batch is ready for a relegation battle, I don't see them spending to get them out of the mess either, the new manager is due another couple of months to turn it around but on the first quarter showing, they are my pick to go down. 

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4 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

We are still in basketcase mode, a legacy of Hopkin and to a lesser extent, Kerr's recruitment and a chairman that is somewhere between visionary benefactor and despot. 

We are a couple of injuries away from catastrophe at any moment despite having a huge squad such is the imbalance oft he squad. 

Duffy has brought a calmness to the club we have been lacking since McCall left. I think we will be ok this season eventually but I don't think we will be in the promotion play-off hunt beyond March. 

Based on the first quarter

Inverness don't look like champions but somehow are opening a gap at the top of the league. I expect another team to win the league and they will be in the top 4 

Raith, like Inverness look like an average championship team over-performing. They will be top 4

Kilmarnock are here for a long time, not a good time. They signed a lot of good championship players but not a lot of players capable of getting them out of it, They will be top 4

Arbroath will hit a sticky spell, lose the majority of games onw quarter and drop in to the bottom 4, will stay up and be outside the bottom 2

Partick are a good, attacking team that will win more that they lose or draw, I think they lack quality in defence and will end up in or just outside the top 4 

Queen of the south, look a good team that lack a 20 goal forward or 2 10 goal a season forwards, 5th to 8th

Morton, won't go down, might be in the play-offs but wont go down

Dunfermline look a decent side that haven't clicked and lack confidence, either way, I think they will either click under Grant or he'll be away before Christmas and they will start to get results, 7-9th

Hamilton rely on youth and I don't think this batch is ready for a relegation battle, I don't see them spending to get them out of the mess either, the new manager is due another couple of months to turn it around but on the first quarter showing, they are my pick to go down. 

Who is going to win the league then? If you have Inverness, Raith and Killie all not being champions?

I will probably be seeing this with ICT tinted glasses on but I think we have a great chance. Granted we aren’t playing particularly well but we have a genuine goal scorer in Billy Mckay. Gardyne out wide is probably one of the best players in the league in his position plus a great midfield/wingers. It’s the first time we have proper depth in these positions.

Defence is a worry. We are incredibly short here. One long term injury could be a disaster unless we bring someone in. Coll Donaldson on loan seems pretty certain to happen in January so hopefully that happens.

I think Killie have great options up front as well. The tactics of Tommy Wright seem to be the major stumbling block for them.

Raith have played some terrific stuff this season but have had some shockers at the back. I wouldn’t say they will be winning the league but should be comfortably in the playoffs.

Partick could be dark horses for it if they can start grinding out results against teams in the top half of the league.

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22 minutes ago, PB1994 said:

Who is going to win the league then? If you have Inverness, Raith and Killie all not being champions?

I will probably be seeing this with ICT tinted glasses on but I think we have a great chance. Granted we aren’t playing particularly well but we have a genuine goal scorer in Billy Mckay. Gardyne out wide is probably one of the best players in the league in his position plus a great midfield/wingers. It’s the first time we have proper depth in these positions.

Defence is a worry. We are incredibly short here. One long term injury could be a disaster unless we bring someone in. Coll Donaldson on loan seems pretty certain to happen in January so hopefully that happens.

I think Killie have great options up front as well. The tactics of Tommy Wright seem to be the major stumbling block for them.

Raith have played some terrific stuff this season but have had some shockers at the back. I wouldn’t say they will be winning the league but should be comfortably in the playoffs.

Partick could be dark horses for it if they can start grinding out results against teams in the top half of the league.

It's there for the taking for any team. other than Inverness, I don't think any team has shown the consistency required to win the league, but I also don't think that Inverness will maintain that consistency. It depends on what kind of lead they have once the wheels start to come off. Any from the top 5 I mentioned. 

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We're probably a bawhair ahead of expectations but not much, I know we're only just in 4th with 15 points but 60 points would be comfortably 3rd based on the previous 25 years of league tables.

The split between the 5 games against the bottom teams of P5 W5, F19 A3 and the other top 4 teams of P4 L4, F4 A11 is enlightening.  It's fine dishing out 6-1 and 4-0 pumpings vs Sean McGinty and the Sideshow Bob right back for Hamilton but we've struggled against the better teams in the league.

We might have stumbled upon a better setup in the last 2 league games but the proof will be in the back to back fixtures vs ICT at home and Killie away in a couple of weeks.

Will take 23 goals for per 9 games though.

Edit: in terms of players I think Graham has exceeded my expectations, I wouldn't swap him for any other striker in the league and would argue he's been better this season than in league one last season. Full backs are still a massive issue despite the BBC fluff job on Foster last night and I think Bannigan and Docherty are fine individually but against the aforementioned better teams get found out as being too similar which leads to us being blunted.

I don't think we have the consistency to be near to winning it and would be surprised if ICT Killie and Raith aren't 3 of the top 4, think we can be the 4th though.

 

Edited by Fuctifano
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I think either Kilmarnock or ICT will win it. Inverness really need to be top 2 with a chance of winning in January and go out and strengthen a wee bit to sustain it.

Raith, both this season and last, are very reminiscent of what we were like in our first season back. A really good brand of football, savvy manager and a really strong first 11 but they also need a few more acquisitions to be considered serious title challengers. Keeping Tait beyond January would be a good start but they probably also need another option in midfield and up front.

There’s something telling me Partick could be up there but simply won’t be for some reason. They’ve got some real good players going forward but I think they’ll get an injury or two and that’ll knock them back a bit. They could also do with a centre half.

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11 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

It's there for the taking for any team. other than Inverness, I don't think any team has shown the consistency required to win the league, but I also don't think that Inverness will maintain that consistency. It depends on what kind of lead they have once the wheels start to come off. Any from the top 5 I mentioned. 

What makes you think that the wheels are going to come off? Obviously I don’t think we can sustain the sort of results we have had from the first quarter over the rest of the season but I don’t really see how a total collapse is going to happen.

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CDDE1A7E-9EEF-4EF2-A487-B1E83D94678E.jpeg

Awful beyond my worst fears. Peter Grant has decent players and a competitive budget and has failed to win a single league game so far. He should never have been appointed and his continued employment is nothing short of an arrogant failure from the Board to admit they fucked it.

Our form has very slightly improved from utterly appalling to just really shite in recent weeks. We could have beaten both Killie and Inverness for example but for a side that should be looking to challenge for promotion, it’s been a truly lamentable opening quarter.

Edited by Cardle is Magic
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3 minutes ago, PB1994 said:

What makes you think that the wheels are going to come off? Obviously I don’t think we can sustain the sort of results we have had from the first quarter over the rest of the season but I don’t really see how a total collapse is going to happen.

I didn't say you would have a total collapse, I said I didn't think you would maintain this form, I don't think the squad you have is ready for a title challenge. 4 goals conceded in 9 games is impressive but 12 for isn't. 

As I said, it depends on how far ahead you are when you start to drop points how it will effect your league final league. 

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4 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

I didn't say you would have a total collapse, I said I didn't think you would maintain this form, I don't think the squad you have is ready for a title challenge. 4 goals conceded in 9 games is impressive but 12 for isn't. 

As I said, it depends on how far ahead you are when you start to drop points how it will effect your league final league. 

I know you didn’t say a total collapse but saying the wheels will come off kind of suggests that, to me anyway.

Yeah 12 goals scored isn’t impressive at all but we have played 8 of the 9 games without our main goal scorer starting any of those games.

I don’t see us continuing with the sort of results we have had already over the long term but I still would say we will be challenging at the end of the season. Unless another team, mainly Killie, going on a ridiculous unbeaten run which so far this season doesn’t seem that likely going off what their fans have said.

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