Morton vs Cove

[CoveRangers1922]

First visit to Cappielow in league action awaits Cove on Saturday.

Both sides, or at least sets of fans, might not quite know what to expect from each other. Going by the league cup results Ton have looked solid defensively apart from the blip against Clyde.

Morton coming off a 1-1 draw with Hamilton and going by the highlights they should have came away with the win but failed to capitalise on their second half chances against 10 men home side. Jai and Jaze definitely give some pace to the forward line, Muirhead behind gives physical presence, height and can score some sublime goals when he's on form. Thought Gillespie used the ball well in the middle of the park. He didn't really stand out for me in the limited game time he got with the Spiders.

Cove will have some early confidence after a winning start and clean sheet. I expect a more physical battle this weekend which we can adapt to quite well. Last week we started 4-2-3-1. Who knows how we'll shape us this week but I suspect we might play two up top (predicted lineup below)

Blair Yule, our energetic box to box midfielder will return in place of Leighton McIntosh. Leitch might drop to the bench in favour of hopefully a new signing or Gerry McDonagh. Unfortunately Rory is no longer with us. I think Morgyn will be picked over Reynolds due to his height and ability to deal with the inevitable long throw-ins.

Morton got any money left to spend? Any new signings left likely?

I'd be shocked if we didn't add 1 or 2 this week and at least 5 before the end of August. 

 

[madton]

We are skint but hoping we can find some money for at least a striker.

Jacobs going out on loan means some money freed up so hopefully Dougie can work his magic, sooner rather than later.

We have a decent enough starting 11 to give most teams in this league a game but zero depth so long season ahead.

Played well at times on Sat so no reason we can't win but will be a tough game.

2-1.

 

 

 

 

[AsimButtHitsASix]

I'm at work so can't check the stats but I got a weird recollection that Megginson seemed to score against us a decent amount during his fairly poor spell at Dumbarton. That might be me mixing up Footballer Manager and real life tho'.

[CoveRangers1922]

5 minutes ago, madton said:

We are skint but hoping we can find some money for at least a striker.

Jacobs going out on loan means some money freed up so hopefully Dougie can work his magic, sooner rather than later.

We have a decent enough starting 11 to give most teams in this league a game but zero depth so long season ahead.

Played well at times on Sat so no reason we can't win but will be a tough game.

2-1.

 

 

 

 

Thought I heard you guys are struggling financial and trying to eek some savings to bolster the squad. At least you got some signings fairly early on. O'Connor should be a decent acquisition and Jai is an enigma who looks very good on his day. Pignatiello and Kabia both did admirably in struggling L1 sides

We are also lacking depth, however, we've barely begun our recruitment and have money to spend; it must be burning a hole in our chairman's pocket. I think the club is rightly not willing to offer the past 3 year deals like we gave Hartley the luxury of but saying that we'll offer good wages and fully expect us to go push hard for the required players before the window slams shut.

We created a fair few chances especially second half against Raith but lacked a bit of protection to the back four at times. Blair coming back will help.

14 minutes ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

I'm at work so can't check the stats but I got a weird recollection that Megginson seemed to score against us a decent amount during his fairly poor spell at Dumbarton. That might be me mixing up Footballer Manager and real life tho'.

Mitch has improved year on year since joining us. He's agile and in and around the box you get the feeling the net will bulge every time he gets the shot away.  He needs support though especially when playing against a bigger centre halves. Last season Rory did that hold up and provided him the knock downs. 

 

[The Ghost of B A R P]

Feels like an important game already, whether or not we have any reinforcements in by Saturday.

A central striker and more guile in midfield and I’d be confident of winning; short of that, we might have to be content with a fair number of draws…

1-1, again (subject to the above).

[JamesMunro]

Hopefully the game is better than the process of buying tickets on the website, terrible! 
 

 

[Paisley Ton]

Well my first outing as the season kicks in with game 2.

DI has now assembled his squad, accept that it has been limited by finances, but that's the nature of the beast.

Season two under MCT, so there should be a clear understand of what we have, what's needed and our aspirations.

I feel that this will be a clear marker for the campaign ahead. Rightly or wrongly I expect us to beat Cove if not the concern levels will be raised. Also game will give us a understanding of the level of opposition we will be up against in the bottom half of the league ( our reality).

Up and on and welcome to the Cove supporters who make the effort to come down. 

Pity the game is not at Cove as I look forward to my visit there, though would have preferred to have travelled in the  daylight. 

[Cowshed]

5-0 before half time will do me lovely means I can head to the Norseman early doors 

[Waverley]

1 hour ago, Cowshed said:

5-0 before half time will do me lovely means I can head to the Norseman early doors 

Only if the gates are open, to get out.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

2 hours ago, Paisley Ton said:

DI has now assembled his squad

Has he?

11 1/2 out and 8 in (the outs probably including most of our higher earners).

We now know the budget has been reduced, but that doesn’t add up… and there was a statement that at least what has been saved on Jacobs will be reinvested. My take is that Imrie still has that money and a wee bit more still unspent.

If he is done, we’ll get about 30 points and go down (or scrape a play-off if someone else goes into meltdown).

Got to be one or two more to come.

2 hours ago, Paisley Ton said:

I feel that this will be a clear marker for the campaign ahead. Rightly or wrongly I expect us to beat Cove if not the concern levels will be raised. Also game will give us a understanding of the level of opposition we will be up against in the bottom half of the league ( our reality).

It most likely will tell us a lot about the season ahead, but why do you ‘expect’ us to beat Cove, just like that?

We couldn’t put away a 10-man Hamilton last week and the team, although pretty solid, clearly lacks goals. Not confident we have enough to win that often.

None of the three possible results would be a surprise here, but the draw has to be the bet (in fact, betting on us to draw most weeks might turn out to be fairly profitable).

[Cowshed]

2 hours ago, Waverley said:

Only if the gates are open, to get out.

Hahaha! When it went out on the twitter page a think it was worded completely wrong 

[Cowshed]

1 hour ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

It most likely will tell us a lot about the season ahead, but why do you ‘expect’ us to beat Cove, just like that?

We couldn’t put away a 10-man Hamilton last week and the team, although pretty solid, clearly lacks goals. Not confident we have enough to win that often.

None of the three possible results would be a surprise here, but the draw has to be the bet (in fact, betting on us to draw most weeks might turn out to be fairly profitable).

That’s my worry for the season ahead not having a clear goal scorer on the pitch which was clearly noticeable against Hamilton with the chances we had, cove have a brilliant goal scorer which could cause us massive issues….

[CoveRangers1922]

Blair Yule still not recovered from his ankle injury sustained in the warm-up of our pre-season friendly against St Johnstone. He sadly misses out.

New recruit, Luis Longstaff will be in the matchday squad; whether he starts ahead of Leighton or Leitch is unknown. Gets a truly awful wrap from the Spiders fans so not expecting much from him at all in a Cove shirt.

Only 1 signing for us this weekend and given the above it's not where we want to be or will be in a few weeks time. Tomorrow will be about trying to grind out a positive result and try to lure others in next week.

We're missing some protection to the back four, as Vigurs can decide he only wants to walk at times, along with some height in the forward areas. Those are my concerns for tomorrow. Vigurs does look comfortable in possession but without the ball can be suspect.

Thankfully we have a goalscorer in Mitch who is normally ruthless.

Expecting an even game but at this premature stage of the season any result wouldn't surprise me.

 

 

[Dunning1874]

I'd hoped Jacobs being away would mean we had someone lined up to come in this week. With the squad as it is you simply can't see where the goals are coming from. We're relying on getting penalties through daft defending.

[port-ton]

33 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

I'd hoped Jacobs being away would mean we had someone lined up to come in this week. With the squad as it is you simply can't see where the goals are coming from. We're relying on getting penalties through daft defending.

With the lack of funds I wouldn't be surprised to see us wait until the last few days of the window once there are players who have realised they aren't going to be part of their teams plans. If so then the next few weeks might be a struggle but should hopefully be worth it over the course of the season. 

[vikingTON]

We signed Reilly on 30 August last year based on the Tele's reporting. While it would have been better to have a target added to the squad now it's standard to wait until the end of the window to 'complete' the squad. The greater concern I have is whether the quality is there in the players that we already have - especially in midfield.

Tomorrow should be an acid test for the team and I'm looking forward to it. Couldn't call a result as I haven't seen us play for a month, but I think Cove's promotion bounce should make them slight favourites. 

[Cowshed]

2 hours ago, CoveRangers1922 said:

Blair Yule still not recovered from his ankle injury sustained in the warm-up of our pre-season friendly against St Johnstone. He sadly misses out.

New recruit, Luis Longstaff will be in the matchday squad; whether he starts ahead of Leighton or Leitch is unknown. Gets a truly awful wrap from the Spiders fans so not expecting much from him at all in a Cove shirt.

Only 1 signing for us this weekend and given the above it's not where we want to be or will be in a few weeks time. Tomorrow will be about trying to grind out a positive result and try to lure others in next week.

We're missing some protection to the back four, as Vigurs can decide he only wants to walk at times, along with some height in the forward areas. Those are my concerns for tomorrow. Vigurs does look comfortable in possession but without the ball can be suspect.

Thankfully we have a goalscorer in Mitch who is normally ruthless.

Expecting an even game but at this premature stage of the season any result wouldn't surprise me.

 

 

I don’t tend to listen to what the players previous fans have to say, when we signed Gillespie it wasn’t sounding great but he’s been our best player and put on a quality performance against Hamilton and now our captain which is deserved so for that reason I don’t listen to what people have to say until I’ve seen the player play for my team

[1320Lichtie]

Draw all over this

[Thistle4eva]

Easy Cove victory! Wee Greenock mob to be relegated by Christmas.

[CoveRangers1922]

Cove starting lineup as below. Only change from last week is Masson in for Leitch who doesn't appear in the matchday squad.

Realistically only 3 outfield subs as Rhys Thomas is a youngster who has never played a league game. In fact I've only ever seen him play a few minutes in a single SPFL trust trophy match.

Does feel very bare bones and I'm not a fan of a lone striker

 

Edited August 6, 2022 by CoveRangers1922