The Greenock Morton Thread - It's Better Than Yours

[Dunning1874]

Just now, niketon said:

 

Looks like Gary wasn't prepared to wait about and fair play to him

 

Yeah, it's entirely understandable on Harkins' part, just as it's entirely reasonable on Morton's part. It's a shame he's gone, but you run the risk of this every time you change your manager.

I'd rather wait to make the right managerial appointment and risk losing a couple of players than appoint a dud as quickly as possible.

[madton]

1 hour ago, Coventry Saint said:

We'll stay up, I'm not worried. And even if we come down, we'll go back up before Morton even get close. That's got to hurt.

To many assumptions in there to take you seriously!

In all seriousness,  of course you have a good chance of staying up but squad will obviously need strengthening.   Curious to see who you bring in.

For us, not concerned at all. There will be plenty time for the new man to come in and build up a decent squad.  As like every other season, there will be loads of players kicking about all Summer and the new man will hopefully already have relationships with existing players/agents.  If come July, we only have half a squad signed, then we will start to panic.

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by madton

[Coventry Saint]

7 minutes ago, madton said:

To many assumptions in there to take you seriously!

In all seriousness,  of course you have a good chance of staying up but squad will obviously need strengthening.   Curious to see who you bring in.

For us, not concerned at all. There will be plenty time for the new man to come in and build up a decent squad.  As like every other season, there will be loads of players kicking about all Summer and the new man will hopefully already have relationships with existing players/agents.  If come July, we only have half a squad signed, then we will start to panic.

Fair enough - transparent wind-up attempt on my part anyway. I am genuinely pretty confident we'll stay up, and genuinely very intrigued to see how your summer goes. It's never dull supporting a diddy club 

[JessieField]

You can't blame Gary Harkins for moving to a bigger, better run Club.

[Branch Ton]

Would be interesting to know from whose budget the offers to Quitongo and the rest have been made. 

[Jamie_M]

Would be interesting to know from whose budget the offers to Quitongo and the rest have been made. 

Pretty sure it'd be Morton's.

Happy to help.

[Dee Man]

Imagine letting your POTY and top scorer go because you haven't got a manager. Fucking hell. 

[jimmy 1]

2 hours ago, Scosha said:

The club explained why they offered any player under 23 a contract. They are doing the best that they can possibly do here. Hopefully we’ll have a manager in by the end of this week/early next week and we can get it all sorted. 

They certainly haven' offered all players under 23 a contract.  I know of 2 such players who have had no contact from club since Duffy left. They must offer them something 28 days before contract finished to be liable for any compensation.

More untruths from the chief exec.

[JessieField]

Quote

Queens after Quitongo next?

 

[Skyline Drifter]

18 minutes ago, jimmy 1 said:

They certainly haven' offered all players under 23 a contract.  I know of 2 such players who have had no contact from club since Duffy left. They must offer them something 28 days before contract finished to be liable for any compensation.

More untruths from the chief exec.

14 days before for domestic protection, 60 days before for international protection.

Presumably the statement from Morton wasn't meant to imply that every single player at the club u23 had been offered a contract, just the ones they thought there might be a genuine chance that another team would jump to sign up and protection of compensation rights was important (like Iredale).

Edited May 9, 2018 by Skyline Drifter

[Colkitto]

Letting our player of the year and one of the best players in the league leave without at least offering him a contract is utter nonsense.

Get Lamie, Murdoch and Harkins signed up now. Harkins is still under contract and hasn't signed anything officially so it's not too late.

The new manager would still have a bit of leeway to build his own squad, but not signing our best players right now is madness  

[19QOS19]

Letting our player of the year and one of the best players in the league leave without at least offering him a contract is utter nonsense.
Get Lamie, Murdoch and Harkins signed up now. Harkins is still under contract and hasn't signed anything officially so it's not too late.
The new manager would still have a bit of leeway to build his own squad, but not signing our best players right now is madness  

Move on man, he's gone.

[#Gary]

Morton are absolutely taking the right approach here. 

If Harkins didn't want to wait then fine. 

There's absolutely no point in the club signing up one of the top earners only for a new manager to come in and decide he doesn't actually want an immobile 35 year old in midfield. 

 

As good a season as he had, he's a bit of a luxury player. If survival was the aim last year then obviously it was a luxury we could afford. If promotion is the aim this year then I'm not sure any midfield with Harkins in it would be good enough tbh.

[19QOS19]

Taking it well.

[Skyline Drifter]

7 minutes ago, #Gary said:

There's absolutely no point in the club signing up one of the top earners only for a new manager to come in and decide he doesn't actually want an immobile 35 year old in midfield.

That's been a Hell of a long day. He's aged two years since this morning!

[#Gary]

8 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

Taking it well.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

That's been a Hell of a long day. He's aged two years since this morning!

 

Tbh it was a bit of a guess at his age and I thought I was being generous saying 35!

[Branch Ton]

32 minutes ago, jimmy 1 said:

They certainly haven' offered all players under 23 a contract.  I know of 2 such players who have had no contact from club since Duffy left. They must offer them something 28 days before contract finished to be liable for any compensation.

More untruths from the chief exec.

Given our stated intention of loading the first team with Development Squad players then, unlike a Jamie Smug, I think it would be interesting to know how much of the player budget will be left for the new guy after Hawke and Anderson have had their fill. 

Hopefully there will be enough left in the kitty for the new guy to terminate some existing first team squad deals by “mutual consent” as well as bringing in some quality. 

 

[Poet of the Macabre]

I think Morton have done the right thing in the current situation they find themselves in.

That situation though, is entirely of their own making. Getting rid of Duffy might well have been the right decision but a new manager should have been quickly lined up to avoid this sort of thing from happening.

It does suggest an appointment isn't close, as surely if a new boss was ready to go then he's have had a quiet word with anyone he wanted to keep and tell them not to sign up elsewhere?

 

[Scosha]

5 minutes ago, Poet of the Macabre said:

I think Morton have done the right thing in the current situation they find themselves in.

That situation though, is entirely of their own making. Getting rid of Duffy might well have been the right decision but a new manager should have been quickly lined up to avoid this sort of thing from happening.

It does suggest an appointment isn't close, as surely if a new boss was ready to go then he's have had a quiet word with anyone he wanted to keep and tell them not to sign up elsewhere?

 

Application for the job deadline was yesterday. I would hope we have set up interviews over the next 2 days and make a decision by the start of next week. 

[Dunning1874]

1 hour ago, jimmy 1 said:

They certainly haven' offered all players under 23 a contract.  I know of 2 such players who have had no contact from club since Duffy left. They must offer them something 28 days before contract finished to be liable for any compensation.

More untruths from the chief exec.

I took it as all first team players 23 or under, ie Iredale, Quitongo, Russell, Tiffoney and maybe Strapp. They're obviously not chucking the first team wage budget at guys who were only on development squad contracts and have hardly played like Langan or Armour.

I do have concerns about the club's approach to youth players transitioning to the first team when you consider Warren Hawke's previous. In statements throughout this season he's seemed to display an ignorance of how youth systems are supposed to work. Saying having 6 or 7 youth products in the match day squad is proof our youth system is working misses the point of whether those players are actually good enough to play at this level, which is surely the whole point of the exercise. It's as if he sees picking youth players as an end in itself regardless of whether we go backwards on the pitch, rather than producing players who are actually good enough as the aim,

When you look at statements like that then consider that he was the mastermind of the 8-8-8 model which contributed to the disaster of 14/15, it does make me worry. Are we going to attempt to saddle the new manager with an unreasonably small first team squad in the name of picking youth players who aren't ready to serve the Chief Executivevs strategy, knowing that if it goes horribly wrong again it can be blamed on the manager rather than the board?

That's all conjecture on my part though; there's absolutely nothing in this statement to give cause for concern and offering Iredale etc contracts is obviously the right thing to do. Can you imagine the reaction if we let Quitongo go for nothing a couple of years after rejecting a six figure bid?