PREVIEW: Morton v Brechin

But picking up three points against Brechin City tomorrow would be guaranteed to leave the Morton boss with a smile on his face.

After a real positive run of results which earned Duffy the SPFL League One Manager of the Month award for November, Ton have stuttered of late.

The undefeated run that stretched for six matches and included significant victories over Dunfermline Athletic and league leaders Forfar Athletic was brought to an abrupt end.

By Lowland League outfit Spartans despite leading 1-0 with 20 minutes to go and while sitting proudly atop the League One summit.

Although the Edinburgh outfit are not your typical non-league club — they have a fantastic set-up and realistic ambitions of joining the SPFL — there can be no doubting it was an awful result.

To follow it up with a trip to Stair Park on a wild winter’s day would have been an unforgiving fixture even if they had disposed of Dougie Samuel’s plucky part-timers.

When you throw into the mix the fact Stevie Aitken’s men came into the meeting on the back of a 14-match unbeaten run, it promised to put Ton’s resolve under the microscope.

They came out with all guns blazing in the early going but failed to score when they were on top and gradually ceded control to the hosts.

By the time defender Sean Crighton was dismissed, Ton were already trailing by two goals and showing no real signs of being in a position to mount a comeback.

Conor Pepper’s red card just put the tin lid on a miserable afternoon that saw the Ton slip to a second successive defeat as well as fourth place in the league table.

They might be an unglamorous name but former Cappielow midfielder Aitken is doing a fine job on limited resources at Stair Park.

That the Blues are realistic promotion contenders this term was once again proven when they followed up the weekend win with a convincing cup victory at Dunfermline on Tuesday.

Nevertheless, it was another sobering away loss for the Greenock men, one that could be catalogued alongside disappointing defeats at Forfar, Brechin City and Stenhousemuir.

As diehard Ton fan John Gisbey put it in his email to the Tele’s Terrace Talk section: joy has turned to despair in the space of a fortnight.

And so it will be a welcome return to home turf tomorrow when the Ton host Brechin at Cappielow after two weeks on the road.

The Ton have fared far better at their Sinclair Street base than they have at grounds across the far flung reaches of the ‘seaside league’.

While they have won three and lost five on their travels, their home record makes for very encouraging reading: Played 7, Won 6, Drew 0, Lost 1, For 15, Against 4.

Victory over the Angus outfit, who sit directly behind Ton in fifth place, cannot be taken for granted, far from it in fact as their 3-1 win at Glebe Park in early October clearly demonstrated.

In terms of personnel, Morton will be without Conor Pepper and Sean Crighton, who both incurred automatic one-match suspensions after they were sent off at Stair Park.

The return of Thomas O’Ware from a hamstring injury, which is uncertain, would go some way to resolving any potential selection headache brought about by their absences.

Ton’s longest serving player could replace Crighton at the heart of the defence or even slot back into the centre of midfield while Michal Miller fills the vacant centre-half berth instead. Elsewhere, it seems likely that Duffy will, as he has often done at home, restore Mark Russell, below, to left-back presuming he is not suffering from tendonitis of the knee that has afflicted him.

The reason appears to be that, with the hosts expected to be on front foot at Cappielow, the teenager offers width and more attacking threat from full-back than Ricki Lamie.

To that end, it would also seem likely that creative wideman Jamie McCluskey will be restored to the starting line-up on the right of midfield.

But whatever the team shape and selection turns out to be, anything but a home win cannot be countenanced.

If, as local lad and amiable Brechin skipper Craig Molloy told the Tele, Ton’s full-time status will see them kick on as the season progresses, winning home matches will be a prerequisite.

A victory tomorrow would also have an added significance when taking recent results into consideration. The longer Ton go without a win, the longer the disappointment of the Spartans defeat will linger.

Seeing the fans’ fury and players’ shell-shocked faces afterwards, there was a sense that the sting, and the inevitable embarrassment that would accompany the loss, was not something they would easily shake off in the way a team of grizzled, lower league journeymen with limited supporter expectations might.

My immediate gut feeling was that those final 20 minutes could knock this young and relatively inexperienced outfit out of kilter in the league, if only temporarily so.

However, picking up six points out of six from back-to-back Cappielow clashes with Brechin and Peterhead would dispel that notion and set Ton up for a very merry Christmas.

Duffy is a manager who keeps his emotions in check at all times. He is not one to get carried away with a win or too low after a loss.

So three points tomorrow might not exactly leave the Ton boss grinning like a Cheshire cat but it would go a long way to clearing the dark clouds that even Kylie couldn’t shift.

Team Latest MORTON are definitely without Sean Crighton and Conor Pepper, both of whom picked up automatic one-match suspensions following their red cards against Stranraer.

Grant Adam looks set to continue between the sticks with Derek Gaston (thigh) and Nicolas Caraux (groin) still sidelined, although Gaston returned to light training this week and is thought to be edging closer to a return.

In other injury news, Reece Hands is unavailable due to a long-standing pelvic problem, while Thomas O’Ware is still struggling with the hamstring strain that forced him to watch from the stand at Stranraer last weekend.

Jon Scullion, too, is doubtful. The forward played 82 minutes of the Under-20s’ Scottish Youth Cup tie against Queen’s Park but is still feeling his ankle.

However, Mark Russell, who has been managing tendonitis of the knee, is expected to be involved against Brechin.