Reaction

To come away with nothing at Cappielow on Saturday, after all the effort the players put in is really frustrating. The players themselves are frustrated by the recent run of results but know they can still turn things around. Once again on Saturday it turned into a game of “first goal the winner” , the margins in this league are tighter than ever and looking back the players know when chances come along they must be taken at this level or you will be punished. However, it took a wonder strike from a second half free kick for Greenock Morton to claim full points at Cappielow and seperate the teams. The Wasps will now face Queen of the South next Saturday at the Indodrill Stadium, after James Fowler’s men were defeated 4-1 at Dumfries by Livingston which pushed “The Wasps” to the foot of the table.

danny lennon at cappielow

Disappointed with the result, but we know just how challenging and difficult this league is, but once again today to put in a performance, especially in the first half, it’s difficult to take that we again take nothing from the game. The difference was the one piece of brilliance which won Greenock Morton the game today, it was a fantastic free kick, what we have to address is the challenges and the free kicks we give away and there is fine lines between controlled aggression and rash, rushing in there challenges and giving the referee the opportunity to give a free kick, I thought personally it was a foul but there is such fine lines within decisions in every game. I thought in the first half we did well and the points were there for the taking, but where we had to improve was in that final third, continually I feel we are still trying to look for that perfect pass or that extra touch to set us up, and more often than not at this minute in time when we do take that extra touch we lose out on that pass that we are looking for, which has been going against us. I’m a great believer if you don’t buy a raffle ticket you cannot win, so we need to take the most of our chances when they are presented.

We know the challenge which we have signed up for at the start of the season, teams will defend deep and once again the first goal was going to prove so important. It is even more disappointing to find ourselves now bottom of the league after other results today, but we know that it is not a sprint, it’s a marathon and we are getting a lot closer to teams and our stats within the games are improving but the biggest stat that we must improve on at this time is that when we do have that bit of ascendancy at any given stage we must make it count and take our opportunities when they arise that’s the frustrating part. Michael Chopra had a great chance in the first half and he will be disappointed he didn’t put it away but he scored some great goals at the end of last season to keep us in this Division and there is no reason why he cannot reach these levels again and he will. Every single game for us is crucial and we again are disappointed we didn’t take something out of our past two games which we have lost 1-0, we know what this football club have achieved in the past three seasons staying in this fantastic league and we have to try and emulate that to go beyond that and achieve a fourth consecutive season in the Championship.

I believe in every one of the boys in that dressing room and there are some, I look at Jason Marr’s performances in the last four or five weeks where he has been exceptional and these are the levels we should be reaching, Colin Hamilton is now settling in to the games in away we knew he could. Morton being a full time team get far more time with their players to work on things, I can’t always come out with that excuse but the players are getting to know my style of play better and they are also getting to know me better and I am getting to know them better as well, but the most important thing is I can get the maximum out of these players, it is also the players own responsibility not only with us on a Tuesday or Thursday but they do take it on for themselves to do that wee bit extra, we have some great pros so that is not a big ask.

At the end of the day we cannot legislate for a piece of brilliance which wins the game, it was a worthy goal to win any game. What we have to look at is the fact people might say we have not replaced Liam Buchanan, but where do you replace a player like that? Apart from Liam Buchanan who scored 17 goals last season the likes of Kevin Cawley got 5 goals , but at this time we cannot rely on one person we need everybody to be looking to get on the score sheet be it Andy McNeil or David Crawford, but we cannot get ourselves down to low , yes we are disappointed and we will wake up the same as the fans because we are passionate about the game and have that washing machine going within our belly, here we go and you will be hiding from people at work but you cannot get to low, also on the high’s we mustn’t get carried away. Our joy and our fulfilment will be at the end of this season whether we are playing in this league for a fourth consecutive season and that’s what will count in May not where we are just now that is you aim.