The Greenock Morton Thread - It's Better Than Yours

[ClydeTon]

6 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

I agree the injuries are badly affecting us, but you can't just disregard the context: Imrie chose to use his budget to sign all of Mullen, MacDonald, Power, Wilson, Boyd, and Bearne, while adding only French and Kirk Broadfoot in response to the loss of Grimshaw, Strapp, and Ambrose at the back.

Balanced squad building required three defensive signings, regardless of the limits of the budget, none of whom are called Kirk. Imrie hasn't actively chosen to limit the size of his squad, of course, but he absolutely has caused it to be badly under-powered in the defensive areas.

Our results show you can get away with many other deficiencies, but you can't get away with that. He must know that by now and (again, I agree) the club has to address it in January, one way or another.

I recognise the context. We have -  compared to the defense - a lot of options in midfield. However, that midfield is shallow.

It took us until O'Connor(?) was injured to bring in French and then French's injury to bring in Harkness.

What I imagine happened was that Dougie thought 'right, I'll see who's available later in the window" - and when later in the window came, nobody was there.

We take the scraps of this league's transfer business. Anyone without a club seems to come here, apart from the really quite good players. Unfortunately that waiting until last kicked us square in the baws and left us without any depth in defense. I'm not really sure where Imrie plans to find someone from in January, either. We might be very fucked.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

38 minutes ago, ClydeTon said:

I recognise the context. We have -  compared to the defense - a lot of options in midfield. However, that midfield is shallow.

It took us until O'Connor(?) was injured to bring in French and then French's injury to bring in Harkness.

What I imagine happened was that Dougie thought 'right, I'll see who's available later in the window" - and when later in the window came, nobody was there.

We take the scraps of this league's transfer business. Anyone without a club seems to come here, apart from the really quite good players. Unfortunately that waiting until last kicked us square in the baws and left us without any depth in defense. I'm not really sure where Imrie plans to find someone from in January, either. We might be very fucked.

We’re not first pick, obviously, but the signings of Robbie Crawford, O’Connor and Grimshaw last year, and even MacDonald and Waters this year, suggest we’re not necessarily restricted to ‘scraps’.

The point is that, however the defensive line-up came about, Imrie has to take responsibility for it. There’s nothing he can do about the overall budget - or the injuries - but having only four defenders plus a Broadfoot in the squad is indefensible.

[Mon eh Ton]

Who else might we have realistically signed? There's a lack of available quality at this level and our limited budget precludes us from purchasing players under contract or offering the kind of wages that would've enabled us to hold on to the likes of Grimshaw when faced with other offers. We were after a defensive back at the same time as Ayr and the best they came up with was the mince that made his league debut against us in the opening match of the season.

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

How's Tyler French getting on? Hopefully he will be set free from this shitemare in January.

Thank you.

 

[The Ghost of B A R P]

27 minutes ago, Bigmouth Strikes Again said:

How's Tyler French getting on? Hopefully he will be set free from this shitemare in January.

Thank you.

 

He’s been rotten for the last three games.

[HoBNob]

On 10/11/2023 at 18:17, Sortmeout said:

Thought I’d drop in to let you know that Lewis Strapp has been training with us and played a reserve game as a trialist earlier this week.

Also on Imrie I think what you are now seeing is the lack of experience coming through. I don’t say this based on anything other than looking at your result and the comments from you guys on here.

It’s been pretty clear in the Premiership both this season and in recent seasons that young, inexperienced managers in their first job seem to really struggle and I think it’s when it’s the bad patches that inexperience comes through strongly. A more experienced manager would probably find a way to just get results when desperately needed. That’s not a criticism of Imrie at all I think it’s just part of the role (and really of life overall, I’m sure we’ve all moved to a new job and felt that lack of experience at times).

Whats the coaching set up like and do you think maybe you should’ve gone for a Brian Rice type appointment to back him up like Livingston have just done? 

I feel like one of the biggest drawback with some inexperienced managers is the lack of contacts they have with regards to signings. Imries has already shown he's got the ability to get the the tune of a shite squad, so I don't nescercarily think bringing in a Brian Rice type guy would change that, I'm not sure any manager gets more out of the squad than Imrie could*

 

What he probably does need, and it's something I wish we had at Dunfermline, was a better recruitment structure around him. 

 

*I am quite a fan of Imrie though, the job he done to pull Morton out of the mire a couple of seasons back was miraculous, the c**t. 

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

We’re not first pick, obviously, but the signings of Robbie Crawford, O’Connor and Grimshaw last year, and even MacDonald and Waters this year, suggest we’re not necessarily restricted to ‘scraps’.

The point is that, however the defensive line-up came about, Imrie has to take responsibility for it. There’s nothing he can do about the overall budget - or the injuries - but having only four defenders plus a Broadfoot in the squad is indefensible.

Aye we tried for Robbie Crawford but he chose Morton over us, fair enough with you being a higher tier at the time. 

[vikingTON]

8 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

One of these days you'll learn to add 2 and 2 together...
By your own logic, he could have not signed either or both of Bearne and Boyd

Neither of which would be on the wages required to sign quality defensive reinforcements. And not signing them would have left us with a similar issue of zero squad options following Quitongo and Oakley's injuries in forward areas. 

The budget quite simply was not there before a ball was kicked to have the quantity and quality squad that you are blaming Imrie for. 

Quote

(not to mention one or the other of Power and Wilson, or even Mullen and MacDonald) and used the money to strengthen the defence.

The argument that the budget 'was not there', as above, just doesn't stack up: he knew the budget he had and he chose to make the signings he made.

Three of those four players were only signed after the League Cup draw was made, not before. So unless you're demanding that we sign literally no first team goalkeeper before adding a 5th, top quality defender, those examples are irrelevant to your point.

I also don't recall you shrieking about any of those signings at the time. So we're just applying 20-20 hindsight on top of false revisionism of the timeline of events. 

Quote

Feel free to disagree (and spare us the repeated nonsense about the deficiencies of the 'operating model' until you can actually describe a credible alternative and specify the magical advantages it will bring).

The alternative is very straightforward: it's a hybrid setup.

We stop pretending to pay full-time wages for jobbers to flog Herbalife products half the week, and instead allow them to get a real fucking job on the side. This shifts our market position from the bottom feeders of a failing professional game in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and instead makes us one of the better picks for semi-professional football. Regardless of the pros and cons from a football perspective, that is the only way of making the budget stretch to build a credible first team squad every season before hoping for cup draw money. 

The team trains on certain evenings while those who would still benefit from full-time conditioning (i.e. youth players) can continue to be provided with those facilities and option to do so. 

The only thing that stands in the way of that straightforward solution is arrogance. 

Edited November 14, 2023 by vikingTON

[Branch Ton]

Whilst the shitfest continues our new chairman is busying away creating a challenging but achievable strategy vision. He states that we currently have talented and hard working staff across all departments. Hopefully his nickname isn’t Nero.
 

Our offer should be competitive and attractive football. Instead we seem to have a budget aimed solely to try to finish above the bottom two using hoof ball and rotational fouling. We have a paper thin small squad with insufficient defenders, an unbalanced midfield lacking in pace and creativity and SFA in the way of emerging prospects. It’s a disgrace that we cannot come close to having a complete bench. If we cannot compete with the likes of Arbroath against whom our record is appalling wtf is the point of going through this angst year after year. Of course Dougie’s splash the cash approach isn’t the answer either but neither is a zero risk one.

The size and quality of the current squad renders us uncompetitive in this league and certainly not what we need in the seaside league.  Better to bite the bullet now and have the Dad’s Army guys depart by mutual agreement and bring in some younger part-timers until the vision is complete. 

[Scosha]

1 hour ago, Bigmouth Strikes Again said:

How's Tyler French getting on? Hopefully he will be set free from this shitemare in January.

Thank you.

 

Wouldn’t be sad to see the back of him to be honest. Poor player. 

[Sortmeout]

1 hour ago, HoBNob said:

I feel like one of the biggest drawback with some inexperienced managers is the lack of contacts they have with regards to signings. Imries has already shown he's got the ability to get the the tune of a shite squad, so I don't nescercarily think bringing in a Brian Rice type guy would change that, I'm not sure any manager gets more out of the squad than Imrie could*

 

What he probably does need, and it's something I wish we had at Dunfermline, was a better recruitment structure around him. 

 

*I am quite a fan of Imrie though, the job he done to pull Morton out of the mire a couple of seasons back was miraculous, the c**t. 

Aye we tried for Robbie Crawford but he chose Morton over us, fair enough with you being a higher tier at the time. 

Aye when I mentioned Rice I meant coming in as an experienced coach/assistant manager to support Imrie, not as a replacement.

 

 

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

27 minutes ago, Scosha said:

Wouldn’t be sad to see the back of him to be honest. Poor player. 

Think we've picked the wrong team to send him to. IMO.

[montheton]

4 hours ago, Bigmouth Strikes Again said:

How's Tyler French getting on? Hopefully he will be set free from this shitemare in January.

Thank you.

 

Please take him back now, has been awful

[Ferguson]

13 hours ago, Bigmouth Strikes Again said:

How's Tyler French getting on? Hopefully he will be set free from this shitemare in January.

Thank you.

 

Had a couple of half decent performances after he first signed, been a bombscare since.

[Dunning1874]

The fixation on the budget ignores that Imrie's still taken gambles within that budget which haven't paid off. No doubt it's a tough task with probably the smallest and certainly one of the two smallest budgets in the division, but regardless of not being able to realistically expect a manager to have a 100% hit rate with signings and some of those gambles being understandable, too many have gone wrong at once.

Take Broadfoot. It was a choice to release Ambrose and bring Broadfoot in instead, the logic presumably being that as well as being the experienced third choice centre back who can dependably step in, he'll bring professionalism off the park and set an example in training etc. That's an understandable gamble, but it's backfired horribly because the way Broadfoot has gone off a cliff means Ambrose is a considerably better player than Broadfoot is. It was a risk to bring in a player of that age who had spent a season in the Lowland League, it's one Imrie was happy to take and he has to take the blame for that backfiring rather than pointing to the budget when he could have kept a better player in Ambrose. This is before we consider keeping him in the team even when he had the chance to drop him.

Similarly, Steven Boyd was hardly a last minute signing when we were scrambling for anyone we could get after playing a waiting game like French & Harkness. He was signed at the start of July and he was given a two year deal, with Imrie saying he'd wanted to sign him for ages. That wasn't a case of these are the dregs the budget leaves us with, that's a player Imrie really genuinely wanted and believed was good enough. Whether through a prior relationship having played together or just misjudging a player's ability, that's just bad recruitment.

Signing Alan Power when more money was made available to him after getting Rangers away made sense on paper, but has also not worked out. That's unfortunate and this turning out to be a season too far for Power isn't something that you can blame Imrie for, but it's his choice to compound that by persisting with him in the starting XI when we've had enough players fit to drop him.

Over the course of his time in charge Imrie still has a very good hit rate in signings overall despite this summer and deserves credit for that, but let's not pretend he's blameless for this.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

16 hours ago, virginton said:

Neither of which would be on the wages required to sign quality defensive reinforcements. And not signing them would have left us with a similar issue of zero squad options following Quitongo and Oakley's injuries in forward areas. 

The budget quite simply was not there before a ball was kicked to have the quantity and quality squad that you are blaming Imrie for. 

 

What do you think Boyd's on? Not enough for a defender who is of sufficient quality relative to what we currently have?

And I'm not demanding some kind of quality x quantity mega-squad... just pointing out that we have neither sufficient quantity nor quality in defensive positions as things stand. Grimshaw, Strapp, and Ambrose out, French and Braodfoot in. Every Morton supporter can see that apart from you, apparently.

 

16 hours ago, virginton said:

 

Three of those four players were only signed after the League Cup draw was made, not before. So unless you're demanding that we sign literally no first team goalkeeper before adding a 5th, top quality defender, those examples are irrelevant to your point.

I also don't recall you shrieking about any of those signings at the time. So we're just applying 20-20 hindsight on top of false revisionism of the timeline of events. 

 

Managaing the budget as the early season progresses is just quite literally part of Imrie's job. The fact that three of those four players were signed after the League Cup draw was made is less relevant than the fact that none of those players are first-pick defenders coming into a squad crying out for precisley that.

And there's no revisionism or 20-20 hindsight going on at all: only hysterics react definitively to individual signings as they're made; but that doesn't mean it's not legitimate to judge the overall business when it's been completed.

As for me, I assumed, for example, when we signed MacDonald that there must be more to come in other areas (i.e at the back); same for Power. Turns out that was wrong, with the exception of French, but that still doesn't change the fact that those are priority choices Imrie has made, that the sum of his business has been poor, and that it's the defensive problems that currently make us favourites to be relegated.

 

16 hours ago, virginton said:

 

The alternative is very straightforward: it's a hybrid setup.

We stop pretending to pay full-time wages for jobbers to flog Herbalife products half the week, and instead allow them to get a real fucking job on the side. This shifts our market position from the bottom feeders of a failing professional game in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and instead makes us one of the better picks for semi-professional football. Regardless of the pros and cons from a football perspective, that is the only way of making the budget stretch to build a credible first team squad every season before hoping for cup draw money. 

The team trains on certain evenings while those who would still benefit from full-time conditioning (i.e. youth players) can continue to be provided with those facilities and option to do so. 

The only thing that stands in the way of that straightforward solution is arrogance. 

Ok, at least that's clear: you think we should effectively go part-time (having the youth players in full-time doesn't materially change that).

Apart from the fact that your view seems to be motivated by some bizarre resentment that some people actually make a full-time living from playing football, you still haven't specified the advantages being 'one of the better picks for semi-professional football' will magically bring. How is that going to get us players who are better, not worse than we currently have? How does it get you closer to a 'credible first team squad'? If it's hard for us to compete for players currently, how does 'you'll huv tae get a job' make us more attractive? There just isn't a pool of sufficiently talented players out there who would rather be part-time than full-time (O'Brien, McKenna, and I'm stretched). 

Seems to me that what's preventing us from doing that isn't 'arrogance' (not even sure what that means btw), but a hard-headed acknowledgement that, difficult though it may be, full-time football is entirely necessary to prevent us drifting into permanent decline.

I happen to think there is a 'hybrid' approach that might suit us, but part-time football is not the answer (until such time as economic conditions determine that it's the answer also for our direct competitors).   

[gmfc]

On 13/11/2023 at 19:27, virginton said:

Well no, because the budget was not there in July to get either quantity or quality, never mind the both that you're claiming. Why would a manager consciously choose to have neither in his squad? That is one (significant) factor that Imrie is literally not responsible for. 

The operating model of putting together a bargain bin, 'full time squad' and then waiting for a cup draw to enhance it has quite simply come back to haunt us. That has been massively compounded by a non-stop parade of injuries.

The squad decisions that Imrie must take fault for are Boyd and Bearne, whose impact has been unacceptable. 

So are you saying a decent budget is not there does that mean the fan ownership is not working as there is not enough fans to sustain it.

[SpoonTon]

22 hours ago, Bigmouth Strikes Again said:

How's Tyler French getting on? Hopefully he will be set free from this shitemare in January.

Thank you.

 

He's been underwhelming at right back but not a total disaster. The games he played in a back 3, on the other hand, definitely have been a total disaster. His basic defending has been a bit all over the place. He's fortunate to be in a defence with Broadfoot, because that's taking some attention away from his performances. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he's not properly fit. 

Hopefully a good run of games at right back and he'll come good but I can't see Dundee being keen to recall him in January. 

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

1 hour ago, SpoonTon said:

He's been underwhelming at right back but not a total disaster. The games he played in a back 3, on the other hand, definitely have been a total disaster. His basic defending has been a bit all over the place. He's fortunate to be in a defence with Broadfoot, because that's taking some attention away from his performances. It wouldn't surprise me at all if he's not properly fit. 

Hopefully a good run of games at right back and he'll come good but I can't see Dundee being keen to recall him in January. 

He's a good player that suffered a really bad injury, like you say hopefully gets a good run of games at RB, that's his position attacking wing back.

Cheers.

[Ludo*1]

Really surprised - and disappointed - to see French struggling to impress with you lads. As a marauding right back, he was probably our best player until he got injured last season. Had the odd defensive lapse but absolutely strolled it with being faster than most attackers and quite physical as well. Could do decently at CH in a pinch as well but better suited as a wing back. Most Dundee fans have been hoping he'll be recalled in January and be our starting RB again with it being a bit of a problem area for us even though we have Cammy Kerr, Jordan McGhee & Josh Mulligan as options there.

Hopefully he starts turning it around for you lot.

[vikingTON]

5 hours ago, gmfc said:

So are you saying a decent budget is not there does that mean the fan ownership is not working as there is not enough fans to sustain it.

There are enough fans to sustain a football club that doesn't run at a loss, doesn't rely on Walter Mitty backers and doesn't jeopardise the future of the club. Fan ownership therefore works far better than anything we have experienced in the past 25 years. 

There are not enough fans to run a full-time playing squad without a significant increase in commercial revenue on and away from match days. That doesn't mean fan ownership doesn't work - it means the fundamental business model doesn't work regardless of who owns it. 

Edited November 15, 2023 by vikingTON