MORTON boss Dougie Imrie has threatened to wield his Cappielow axe - even before a competitive ball has been kicked in anger.
Ton are due to face off against East Fife tomorrow at Bayview, but Imrie was left nowhere near impressed with some of the performances put in by some of his squad in the second half of Tuesday night’s defeat to St Mirren.
The manager has not been shy in setting out his stall early doors as he looks to harass teams in their own half of the pitch, and he says that some players could have played their way out of the Cappielow exit door as he revealed one key area that he's still looking to strengthen.
Imri told the Tele: “Hopefully there’s still one or two more to come, you’re always out there looking for better than what you have.
“I could be doing with a No.9 so that’s an area that I’m looking at.
“However, in the second half on Tuesday, I think some players played their way out of the exit door.
“And that’s because I’m not going to accept that [level of performance].
“At the end of the day we work as a team, some players went on and just walked about. That’s not going to happen here this season.
“It can’t happen with the way we want to play and the way we need to be, on the front foot and getting after teams.
“I’m not going to buy that unfortunately. So there will be a couple of conversations had.”
When asked to summarise what he’s seen during the course of his side’s warm up stint, Imrie believes his side are just missing some composure when it matters most.
He was able to list off numerous chances that his side made themselves against St Mirren, with new keeper Ellery Balcombe making a very good impression on the 2,000-plus strong crowd in Cappielow.
Imrie added: “I don’t think it needs to click, I think that putting the ball in the net has been the issue.
“We had some really great opportunities against St Mirren on Tuesday night and their keeper, to be fair to him, has made some great saves.
“Lamar was through one-on-one; you’d expect him to put it down the side or go round the keeper for a tap in.
“Wee Moff [Owen Moffat] has had one down to his right-hand side and he’s pulled off a fantastic save, Gillespie’s had one down to his right that was saved brilliantly and Bluesy [Cameron Blues] has forced a save too.
“I’m not disappointed, because we’re making the chances and, on another day, we score two or three.
“The second half was a non-event due to the number of changes that were made.”
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