Morton Catch-Up

 

No rest for the wicked and we face Morton at the Caledonian Stadium on Tuesday night, the game kicking-off at 7:00pm with live streaming available from Caley Jags TV. In this cut-throat league we have got to the stage where a play-off slot is achievable. Unfortunately, that's more likely at the wrong end of the table although both options are still available with only ten games left for us. We could go a long way to relieving some of the pressure on ourselves by beating Morton who have fallen just below us in the table, but we are Caley Jags and we don't take the easy options.

		Pld	W	D	L	F	A	+/-	Pts
1.	Hearts	19	13	3	3	46	21	25	42
2.	Raith Rovers	16	8	3	5	32	24	8	27
3.	Dunfermline	17	7	6	4	26	19	7	27
4.	Queen of the South	19	8	3	8	30	37	-7	27
5.	Dundee	17	6	6	5	31	32	-1	24
6.	Arbroath	19	5	6	8	17	24	-7	21
7.	Inverness CT	17	4	8	5	25	22	3	20
8.	Ayr United	17	5	5	7	22	21	1	20
9.	Morton	18	4	7	7	16	24	-8	19
10.	Alloa Athletic	19	3	5	11	21	42	-21	14

 

OFFICIAL PREVIEW

 

Last 10 Competitive Meetings against Morton back to April 2018

2 - 2 (A)

3 - 2 (H)

1 - 2 (A)

3 - 1 (H)

5 - 0 (H)

2 - 2 (A)

1 - 0 (H)

2 - 1 (A)

1 - 1 (H)

3 - 0 (A)

On Saturday we battled from behind to earn a draw at Alloa after Innes Cameron had given the hosts the lead. Nikolay Todorov replied for the Caley Jags before the Interval and that's how it ended. Both keepers made decent saves and that's the reason there was no further scoring. Well that and a couple of shocking misses. Good to see Lewis Toshney involved with the squad, even it was just sitting on the bench. His experience could be useful in the final few games of the season.

Since drawing 2-2 with us in January, Morton have failed to win in five games although a couple of deserved draws with Hearts and Dundee have been undermined by poor results against Arbroath and Raith Rovers. However a 0-2 defeat from Ayr United at the weekend has dumped Morton below Ayr and Inverness although there is only one point in it. 

Both sides are in a rut at the moment. Neither side has an out and out goal scorer, both sides have only four wins and are flirting with the relegation zone and both sides need the points. What could possibly go wrong?

There is one other game tonight in the Championship as Raith Rovers take on Ayr United at Stark's Park which is also a 7:00pm kick-off. Dunfermline v Dundee is postponed due to a covid outbreak at East End Park with players having to self isolate.

***Latest Team News***

Neil McCann: We have a doubt over Cameron Harper who was precautionarily substituted at Alloa. Better news is that Aaron Doran is back training. Todorov and Sutherland are our top scorers this season with five apiece and Raith bound James Keatings has four. Scott Allardice is our most booked player with five yellow's.

Antone McElhone used these players in the home defeat to Ayr United: McAdams, Ledger, McLean, McGinty, Strapp (Muirhead 50′), Jacobs, McGuffie (Johnson 65′), Colville (Sterling 65′), Blues, Nesbitt, Salkeld.

Left back Lewis Strapp is a doubt for Morton after he was injured in the game against Ayr United where Robbie Muirhead replaced him after fifty minutes. A foot injury could see Strapp miss this one.

Kalvin Orsi, Cameron Blues and Craig McGuffie are the Ton's top scorers with three goals each this season.

 

 

This post has been promoted to an article

2 minutes ago, forresjags said:

Were things any better before McCann came in , that's very debatable. 

Regardless, he can be the scapegoat now if it all goes completely tits up!!!!

18 played. 9 to play. We are second bottom. Must to better, and fast!

This season feels worse than the 2016/17 collapse under Foran. My blood pressure can't take any more games like this. I won't be watching any more this season.

Total disgrace. Fecked off with this lot

Utter turgid sh*te, something is very wrong at the club both on the pitch and in the dressing room. Lazy, one dimensional, no imagination and no determination.

 

Just looks like virtually nobody really cares.

That was rough viewing. Didn't deserve anything from that. Toothless and no fight.....absolutely honking!!!!

Is it too soon to start the #McCannOut campaign?

Morton were/are garbage.

Doesn't reflect well on us .

This team is heading for relegation and couldn’t have any complaints.

No quality on show and, yet again, no leadership on the pitch.

I would post something but for the fact that I have already exhausted every negative adjective in my vocabulary.

League 1 awaits. Garbage!!!!!!!!!!

1 minute ago, Row S said:

This season feels worse than the 2016/17 collapse under Foran. My blood pressure can't take any more games like this. I won't be watching any more this season.

For me I just don't feel we're ICT any more. I've had this feeling that we're just another club since 2016. The magic has gone. This must be how it feels to support all the other clubs.

We can no longer hope against the games in hand, this is serious, we are in relegation mode. 

Not one of them on the pitch tonight deserves any wages.

In any other job you would get sacked for being so utterly useless. 

Shameful performance.

Hang your heads in shame everyone of you.

we have to get used to it we are going down this season 

Absolutely no comparison to Forans season,for all his naivety and faults at least we gave it a go until the last match.

2 minutes ago, TheMantis said:

For me I just don't feel we're ICT any more. I've had this feeling that we're just another club since 2016. The magic has gone. This must be how it feels to support all the other clubs.

Agreed but, somehow or other, we need to find a way to rediscover the magic as we are not just any other club.

6 hours ago, hislopsoffsideagain said:

Called it.

 

This feels very much like what happened to Partick Thistle last season, and Falkirk the season before.

The flair went a long time ago, what a difference to that televised QOS game, pundits were drooling. That has to be the worst. Think I will give my old pal Pele a bell.

10 minutes ago, standbydave said:

Shane must be the top crossbar hitter in the league

 

Is that a euphemism for not so good at scoring?

We had an encouraging opening 30 minutes against Hearts but everything after that has been absolutely abysmal. We are sleepwalking towards relegation.

I would not be at all surprised if Buckie put us out of the Scottish Cup. We have already had a stupid run of games and we play Saturday / Tuesday or Wednesday for all of March I think. Our squad isn't the biggest and the guys we do have available will be absolutely burst.

A "new" manager trying to instil his philosophy into players who are clearly struggling with it when we don't have the time to adapt to this kind of change and he can't bring in players who can play that way.

It has all the hallmarks of another chapter in the Inverness CT banter years.

A club in absolute freefall. Mind boggling that wealthy shareholders stand idly by and watch the club spiral into oblivion. Would be good to hear how Mr Gardiner suggests we extricate ourselves from this current predicament. I'm all ears.

Its clear what the problem is and has been for months - we dont score goals. Look at the stats 18 games with 25 goals. While the defence is relatively solid only conceding 23 which only 4th best in the whole league our scoring record is very poor being 4th worst.

So the question has to be are our forward players honking devoid of confidence or do we just have no creative ideas to feed them. Probably a combination of both IMO which is ironic as on paper we have some talented players who are good enough for this level.

2 minutes ago, forresjags said:

Absolutely no comparison to Forans season,for all his naivety and faults at least we gave it a go until the last match.

I recall possession football with no penetration then being picked off by what we deemed were lesser teams, time and time again.

Sounds familiar?