Dougie Imrie wants Cappielow gauntlet before Accies clash

Imrie's troops are gearing up to host Hamilton Accies on Saturday in their first home match of the Championship campaign.

Ton have lost only one of six games at Cappielow so far this season, a 2-0 friendly defeat to UEFA Conference League hopefuls St Mirren – and Imrie wants to try and replicate, and perhaps even improve, on the defensive records that his side have set in the last two seasons.

Morton want to be a force at Cappielow this season (Image: alex craig)

Ton lost only five games at home in all competitions two seasons ago, and whilst they failed to match that last season, they still remained one of the tightest defences in the division.

Imrie says he wants Cappielow to be a place opposition teams will fear throughout the 2024-25 campaign. 

He told the Tele: “We want to win every game. That never changes. That’s a mindset we want to instil here, and it never changes, regardless of who we come up against.

READ MORE: Dougie Imrie says Hamilton test will be gauge of side's progress

“People might mention records but we don’t bother looking into that. We just focus on winning games of football.

"That’ll always be the aim for as long as I’m in the building, and hopefully we can make Morton as successful as possible."

Imrie says he's pleased with how his new-look squad is beginning to gel after a challenging Premier Sports Cup group campaign, and says he wants to take the good things from last Saturday's 0-0 draw at Firhill into the start of their Cappielow fixtures.

“It’s a new group," he said, "but the new group is coming together, with a lot of positives to take from Saturday’s game.

“At home, though, we want to be as near-perfect as possible.

"It was the same last year, where we wanted to build on the 22/23 season. We’d only lost five games at home that year and we wanted to improve on that last season, but unfortunately that never happened.

“But you go into every game, especially at home, wanting to win. That should be the bar,  but we’ll give it our all because as a group we want to win as many games as we can.

“That was the aim last week at Partick, when we came away with a very good point at a very tough place to go any time of the season.

“There won’t be many teams who go there this season and pick up points, I’m delighted that Morton got the first one, but we’ve got a massive opportunity to build on that today against a decent team who’ll be looking to avenge their opening day defeat at home to Ayr.”

One thing that Imrie isn’t worrying about is injuries - in a welcome reprieve for his side.

Owen Moffat and Arron Lyall were both subbed last week moments after receiving treatment but Imrie revealed both have trained well all week as he opened up on his delight at the depth he has at his disposal.

He continued: “Arron and Owen are both fine. They’ve trained all week, very well I must say.

"There’s nothing much to speak out on the injury front which is nice, but everyone’s fit and raring to go.

“Some people might say there’s a headache now for selection, but the team did very well last week. People need to be patient and need to work hard to get the jersey.

“One thing I will say though is that it’s really pleasing to have a competitive bench that’s pushing the boys on to keep their jersey at the moment.”