Doyle disappointed with successive home losses

Defender Michael Doyle speaks to media and communications officer Jonathan Mitchell and expresses his disappointment at losing at home to Livingston for the second time in the space of 11 days.

 

When asked for his thoughts on the result and performance, the 26-year-old said:

Obviously disappointed. We just played Livingston and we know what they’re going to do: they’re going to the same thing from the first minute to the last minute.

“They work hard in the middle third of the park and win second balls. We competed a lot better than we did two Tuesdays ago. 

“But our home form was something we used as a platform to build on last season, and we’re disappointed to lose at home for the second time against the same opposition.

Livingston’s goal came from a route-one clearance, and Doyle insisted that is something Morton need to work on after conceding in comparable fashion away at Motherwell in the Betfred Cup:

“If you look at the goal, we lost a similar one against Motherwell, so we need to learn from these things because you’re going to get punished.

Cappielow gaffer Jim Duffy was unhappy with the way his team rushed their final ball. The right-back echoed those sentiments, stating it was something he was guilty of on an individual level:

“We rushed it a wee bit in the last 25. We put balls into the box where their three centre-halves know that game and are very good at what they want to do.

“We looked at the last 20 minutes of the last Livingston game and realised we played a lot better when we got the ball forward, into the wide areas and put it in the box.

“But we did rush it on Saturday, and, personally, looking at my own game, I felt I rushed it a wee bit too much as well. These

Ton now have a free weekend due to the international break, and Doyle says they must take this defeat on the chin and work hard in training to address Saturday’s shortcomings:

“We need to take it on the chin and try and improve over the week, over the weekend and going into next week as well.

It’s a learning curve. It’s a long season and we need to get our head down, put it behind us and develop for the next game.

Image: Gary Bradley