MORTON manager Jonatan Johansson has slammed his team’s ‘embarrassing’ performance on Saturday — but he insists they’ll learn from their 5-1 mauling by Ayr United.

The Ton were level at Cappielow at the break after Lawrence Shankland opened the scoring after 19 minutes before Charlie Telfer netted an equaliser on 35 minutes.

The game was finely balanced heading into the last 20 minutes, but the home side collapsed as the Honest Men went on to score four goals.

It was Morton’s heaviest home defeat in almost five years, since losing 5-1 to Livingston back in November 2013, and Johansson said his side’s defending was simply unacceptable.

He told the Tele: “It was very disappointing the way we almost gave up after they scored the second goal, that 20-minute spell was unacceptable and embarrassing for me.

“I was disappointed but up until they scored the second that was probably the best football we had played in my three games that I’ve been here.

“It was disappointing but I can’t accept the way we capitulated, we let them keep attacking us which was really poor, but up until they scored the second we felt we played some good football.

“For the first goals they just lost their markers in the box, we don’t follow in runners, good forwards follow in the runs and we didn’t cover that.

“We’ll learn loads from that performance.

“We’re learning every game lots about ourselves and I said if you want to have a chance in this league then you need to be able to defend.

“You need to be able to dig yourselves out and it doesn’t matter what you do offensively and what you create. If you can’t keep the ball out of your own net you’re not going to do well.”

The game’s turning point came early in the second half.

Michael Tidser’s poor penalty was saved, and the midfielder and Chris Millar were forced off through injury.

Two of the Ton’s most influential players were missed, but Johansson says the loss of the pair can’t be blamed for the defeat.

He added: “It had an impact of course.

“We still kept our shape towards the end and it was tough for some of the boys coming on.

“But we had some experienced players still in that team and the defending for that last 20 was just unacceptable.”
The Ton lined up with a 4-3-3 formation, similar to what Ray McKinnon used at his time at Morton from the start of the game.

Four changes were made to accommodate the change in style, with Denny Johnstone missing out through injury.
He said: “I wanted to change the formation after last week, as I don’t think we played well with the ball.

“We looked much better on the ball, we looked much sharper and created better chances.”