Morton (h) May2024

[tm4tj]

 

Last Chance

 

 

It's the last chance in the last chance saloon for us if we want to avoid the dreaded relegation play offs with some olde adversaries licking their lips in anticipation that our insipid non scoring bunch of mercenaries will be the final piece of the relegation jigsaw. Morton are the visitors on Friday night whilst Queens Park host Airdrieonians. Waiting eagerly for us to drop in are perrenial hoodoo sides Hamilton Academicals and Alloa Athletic with Montrose, complete with Michael Gardyne and other journeymen and one Brazilian Matteus Machado, who spent some time at Inverness as a promising youth. However, first things first, it's Dougie Imrie's Morton side who come North looking to sign off their season on a high. Did Dougie dodge a bullet with Duncan Ferguson pulling the managerial rug from under his feet to get the Caley Jags gig. I'm sure that will be enough incentive for Dougie to throw the relegation spanner into the works.

 

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Match/Ticket Info

Bring a friend for £££££

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Venue H2H v Morton

Pld

Won

Drn

Lst

For

Agst

+ / -

Home	22	12	6	4	48	20	+28
Away	21	12	3	6	40	26	+14
Neutral	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Total	43	24	9	10	88	46	+42

As the stats show, we have a massive advantage over Morton, however, as we have deteriorated over the last few years, Morton's more recent record against us has improved and given that, this game could go either way whereas a few years ago it was almost a gimmee. We have failed to beat Morton at the Caledonian Stadium in our last five encounters.

Last 10 Competitive Meetings v Morton

2 - 0 (A)

0 - 0 (H)

1 - 2 (A)

2 - 1 (A)

2 - 2 (H)

0 - 4 (A)

0 - 1 (H)

1 - 0 (A)

0 - 1 (H)

6 - 1 (A)

We could do with some of this from August 2019: 5 - 0 With BBC TV looking on, Inverness and Morton served up a Friday night first half horror show. Thankfully, in stark contrast, the second half was full of entertainment.

In a lifeless first half at the Caledonian Stadium, neither side was able to get the handful of fans inside the ground excited, however, just before the interval Aaron Doran made a half yard of space for himself inside the box and fired a wicked shot at Rogers. He parried the shot away and James Keatings guided the loose ball back into the net from ten yards. One minute into the second half and Keatings bagged his second as he rifled the ball home from 12 yards on the right side of the box. The third came about after a good bit of ball retention ended with Jordan White rolling the ball into the net. Mark Ridgers saved a miserable penalty from Nicky Cadden after David Carson handled from an overhead attempt. Coll Donaldson met a corner from Keatings at the front post to nod down into the net to make it four nil. Substitute Nikolay Todorov got into the act and drilled one past Rogers from 18 yards, and there endeth the scoring. (click on above score for full report)

How did we get into this mess: Take a bow the Inverness board and CEO.

Well, where do you start. It was clear from the begining of the season that something was wrong. Poor signings, dismal performances in the League Cup followed by an abysmal start to the League campaign saw Billy Dodds removed from his position after winning one point in the first six Championship fixtures and replaced by a man with no track record as a manager. A sort of publicity stunt if you like. After the initial new manager bounce wore off, we found ourselves little better off with Big Dunc than we were with wee Billy. We did claw ourselves up to the coat tails of others but the most damning part of our season has been our inability to score goals, especially at home. Only already relegated Arbroath are worse than us. Our team is now full of mercenaries, loan players with no affiliation to our Highland pedigree and many fans have tagged us as being the worst squad ever in our short history. Where are the Golabeck's, Tokeley's, Wilson's..... Much of this can be attributed to our lack of financial nous in the boardroom, failed ventures and now the begging bowls are being put in place to save our club. Having drawn at Dunfermline last week thanks to Aribim Pepple's first goal for the club combined with Billy Mckay's penalty miss, it's now out of our own hands. LAST SIX: D L  W W L  D 

Morton have slipped off the pace recently after looking like they were going to make the top four at one point. They are on a similar run to us, but safe from danger. They drew 0-0 with Raith Rovers last week and their only victory in April was a 2-1 win over 'tools down' Arbroath. LAST SIX:  W L  D L  W D .

Pos Team Pld W D L F A Pts We are on the bottom edge of a congested mid-table mediocrity 1. Dundee Utd 35 21 9 5 69 22 72 2. Raith Rovers 35 19 9 7 53 42 66 3. Partick Thistle 35 14 13 8 62 50 55 4. Airdrieonians 35 15 7 13 44 42 52 5. Morton 35 12 9 14 42 43 45 6. Dunfermline 35 11 11 13 40 45 44 7. Ayr United 35 12 7 16 50 58 43 8. Queens Park 35 10 10 15 48 56 40 9. Inverness CT 35 9 12 14 38 39 39 10. Arbroath 35 6 5 24 35 84 23

• FRIDAY NIGHT 7:45pm
•    Ayr United v Dunfermline
• Dundee United v Partick Thistle  
• Inverness v Morton  
•   Queens Park v Airdrieonians
• Raith Rovers v Arbroath    

Latest Team News

Inverness have very few options to change things around. Aaron Doran confirmed as long term injury. Don't expect many changes.

 

Morton will come North without Lewis Strapp, he of the looooong throw, injured against Dunfermline over a month ago. Kirk Broadfoot is still going strong and George Oakley has a new lease of life since leaving Inverness. They also have the dangerous and powerful Robbie Muirhead and Jao Quintongo.

Morton team v Raith (0-0)

Mullen

 

French   O'Connor   Broadfoot   Waters

 

Blues   Gillespie (Power 90)   Crawford   Quintongo (McGrattan 70)

 

Muirhead (Bearne 70)   Oakley   McCann (Holmes 80)

 

Subs Not Used: Murdoch; Baird, Wilson

[tm4tj]

 

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

This is not about the manager, the board or the players - this should be about the club, the shirt and the badge. 

Let the spirits of yore be with us.

[Robert]

Let’s forget our off field woes and concerns and get behind the players tonight, doing all we can to help them to do our bit by winning the game.

 

[tm4tj]

Savage

[caley100]

Well it's now D day, Or Duncan day if you prefer!  He's saying he will be here next  season won or lose, Relegation or status quo.  What's your thoughts?

Keeping us up is very important, However we could win 5 0 and still be in the playoffs.

[+snorbens_caleyman]

11 minutes ago, caley100 said:

He's saying he will be here next  season won or lose, Relegation or status quo.  What's your thoughts?

But will there be anyone else there? That's the question!

[IBM]

25 minutes ago, caley100 said:

Well it's now D day, Or Duncan day if you prefer!  He's saying he will be here next  season won or lose, Relegation or status quo.  What's your thoughts?

Keeping us up is very important, However we could win 5 0 and still be in the playoffs.

I think your dreaming caley 100,   5  0 

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

I hate feckin spiders

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Captain Kirk is a klingon. 

[Satan]

Playing like poodles so far.

[mazza20]

Looking at stats in the other game, don't think Airdrie has shown up to play tonight

[Huisdean]

Yet again absolute joke of a linesman and referee have cost us. Referee and standside linseman are simply not up to standard. Will we ever get a decision as it also looked like we could have had a penalty at the end of the first half yet inexplicably the ref gives a foul to Morton.

[mazza20]

3 minutes ago, Huisdean said:

Yet again absolute joke of a linesman and referee have cost us. Referee and standside linseman are simply not up to standard. Will we ever get a decision as it also looked like we could have had a penalty at the end of the first half yet inexplicably the ref gives a foul to Morton.

Got it on a very pixelated stream so couldn't see what happened but the team was raging about it

[kenneth thomson]

13 minutes ago, mazza20 said:

Looking at stats in the other game, don't think Airdrie has shown up to play tonight

Airdrie  must have 3 team if you look at statistics 

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Bring on Todorov 

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Oh well - play offs it is but lets not forget how Airdrie frcked us.

[GaliantGrunt]

After all that’s said and done we were just one win away from 5th !

[Yngwie]

Most of us called it right, ICT do their bit but unfortunately for us our rivals were up against a team who had nothing to play for except to avoid getting injured, suspended or tired.

[mazza20]

Thought the second half was really good, and we go into Tuesday's game with some confidence, not ideal but we've left our best bit of form until the end of the season with too much to do

[Yngwie]

2 minutes ago, GaliantGrunt said:

After all that’s said and done we were just one win away from 5th !

Yes, and we have the 4th best goal difference and 2nd best defensive record in the league. Sadly none of this counts!

[buckett]

14 minutes ago, IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER said:

Oh well - play offs it is but lets not forget how Airdrie frcked us.

Wasn't Airdrie that frcked us. We did a pretty good job of that ourselves over the season.

 

[ICTPaisley]

2 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Yes, and we have the 4th best goal difference and 2nd best defensive record in the league. Sadly none of this counts!

Finished on the highest amount of points as well. Airdrie matched the 42 points in 07/08 who went down in the playoffs. 

[Yngwie]

14 minutes ago, ICTPaisley said:

Finished on the highest amount of points as well. Airdrie matched the 42 points in 07/08 who went down in the playoffs. 

Yes I was just looking back through the Championship tables. In the 29 seasons since it became a 10 team league, there is never a season when our record would have left us as low as 9th. (The only other time 9th had more than. 40 points was Airdrie as you say, but they had GD of -14)

Edited May 3 by Yngwie

[Robert]

Quite a comfortable win tonight although the first half was poor.

I thought Morton were a disgrace with some of their tackles and mouthing off, not to mention Broadfoot’s provocative goal celebration. Thankfully the ref cottoned on in the second half and belatedly started dishing out cards. It made me glad we didn’t appoint Imrie as I’d hate to see us playing like that.

Credit to Harper for keeping cool at the penalty and the strikes by Boyes and McAllister both looked good.

I think we’ve all been resigned to this for some time, and we are actually going into the play offs in decent form, with 10 points out of the last 15.

Four big games ahead to save our season, and maybe also save our club.

I just hope Ferguson has seen enough of MacGregor in his short game time to start him on Tuesday.

For me, the problem stemmed from all late goals we conceded earlier in the season. At one point, we’d shipped 12 points (if my memory serves me right) to goals in the 80th minute or later, largely as our tactic was to try to defend what we had (very unsuccessfully!). 

Edited May 3 by Robert