THE Christmas party season is in full swing and Morton’s players were full of festive cheer as they boarded their bus for Manchester. Having produced in the second half what manager Jonatan Johansson described as “one of their best home performances of the season” their players had certainly earned their team night out.
Dundee United, on the other hand, would have been a grumpy as The Grinch after letting a win slip through their fingers or more accurately skim off the glove of goalkeeper Matej Rakovan's attempted punch as they failed to capitalise on Ayr’s weekend off to close the gap on the Championship leaders.
Looking for a response to their humiliating 5-0 hammering by Ayr, Robbie Neilson’s charges were on course for a hard-fought win after Frederic Frans headed them into a first-half lead. After the interval, however, Dundee United were posted missing as Morton dominated proceedings and deservedly drew level when Gregor Buchanan capitalised on an error from Rakovan, who failed to punch clear Michael Tidser’s free-kick, and headed into the unguarded net.
Neilson, who was sent to the stand late on by referee David Munro, felt his players were sucked into Morton’s direct style of play after the interval and lacked composure - and Frans agreed they needed to be more confident in possession.
Frans said: “If you’re away from home you should see that game out once you go up.
“It’s always a difficult game in this league away from home but if you go a goal up you should try to see the game out.
“In these games these are the difficult games where it is not always pretty but you need to do the hard work and the ugly part of the game. You know with the weather and everything else as well what kind of game to expect and in the second half we didn’t match their way of playing.
“Of course, we have to match them first in the battle but then we need our quality to handle those games because once you start getting sucked into their way of playing it becomes like a tennis game and that’s what those teams are good at.
“So we need to match them and then at the right moments we need to get the ball down and pass it.
“Our football needed to be better. It’s a decent pitch, we’re good football players, we just need to have the b******s to get on the ball more and pass it around.
“We’ve taken one point from a possible six, one draw in two. We lost against the leaders, so we need to stay humble.
“Of course, we want to win the title but, at this moment, we need to get back to our shape and start winning games again.”
Morton’s Buchanan was relieved to score his first goal for the club. Buchanan said: “It’s nice to get off the mark for Morton. It’s been a long time coming - 14 months I’ve been waiting for a goal. My last goal was for St Mirren against Inverness. I should be notching a few more than I do.”
Neilson claims he was shouting at one of his players and not the officials when Munro ordered him for the touchline and he’ll contest any SFA charge.
Neilson said: “If you get sent to the stand every time you shout onto the pitch I don’t think there will be anyone left in the stadium, never mind the managers. I’ll see what happens but I’ll definitely be fighting it.”
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