McAlister: Squad has benefited from free week
Club captain Jim McAlister feels that Morton have benefited from not having a game last weekend and says that it has helped recent January signings get settled in after spending more time on the training pitch with their new Ton teammates.
The 33-year-old has also discussed Ayr United’s recent results and how difficult tomorrow’s game against The Honest Men will be.
Speaking to gmfc.net, the midfielder said: “There’s a lot of hard work been done in training over the last two weeks and we’ve used the free week to our advantage.
“We beat Motherwell 3-0 in a bounce match last Thursday and I thought we were excellent especially considering we were playing against several Motherwell first team players.
“Sometimes it’s difficult going into a game when you’ve not played the previous Saturday so we’ll need to make sure we are focussed from the start against Ayr United.
“But I feel we’ve made a lot of progress in training and the new players have come in and settled nicely.
“The free week has definitely helped us out as a squad as it’s given the new lads time to get used to their surroundings and as a team we’ve worked a lot on how to improve our game.”
McAlister has featured in both matches the Ton have played against Ian McCall’s side this season and the skipper reckons there hasn’t been much between the two sides.
He added: “The defeat at Cappielow earlier in the season was a huge disappointment and it really came down to a crazy 17 minutes from us.
“There wasn’t much in it up until we missed the penalty and from there we just switched off and were punished for it.
“Then when you look at our game against them at Somerset Park in November it was a much improved performance from us.
“I felt as though we created enough chances to win the game and we were very disappointed that we didn’t come away with all 3 points.
“Ayr United have had a couple of mixed results recently so they’ll be coming to us hoping they can get a win to build on their momentum at the top end of the table.
“For us it’s all about getting points on the board, we need to get back to winning ways and push towards getting a play-off position which would be massive for the club and massive for our loyal supporters.”
image: David Bell
