MORTON’S director of youth Derek Anderson admitted it was far from the ideal circumstances to take over the first team on Saturday.

Anderson and John Sutton took temporary charge at the weekend after manager Ray McKinnon shocked the club by leaving for Falkirk on Friday.

The director and Sutton were both at an under-18s game at Parklea at the time they found out the manager had left and that they were to take charge against Partick Thistle.

But under the bizarre circumstances, the UEFA A-licence holder felt his side performed well in their 1-0 loss, despite everything going on in the background.

He told the Tele: “It was a bit of a whirlwind, myself and John Sutton were at the under-18s game at Parklea against Inverness the night before.

“We were in during the day, we had some paperwork to do for Project Brave, the under-18s game and then the phone calls started coming in.

“We didn’t have any time to work with the squad, but we spoke to some of the more experienced players in the changing rooms regarding set-pieces.

“It was difficult not having done anything with them beforehand, even doing one session would have been good. We met them on Saturday, it was a quick chat and we saw the team.

"We spoke a little about it, their attitude and staying in the game. I thought we were compact, we had a good shape about us.”