MORTON manager Jonatan Johansson felt his side should have won yesterday’s 1-1 draw with Ayr United.

Lee Kilday gave away a 'silly' penalty in the first half, which Lawrence Shankland put away to give the hosts the lead at Somerset Park.

But Greg Kiltie’s second goal for the Ton after 71 minutes earned the Greenock side a point, keeping them in sixth place.

It was a much-improved performance from Saturday’s 3-0 loss to Partick Thistle, and saw Morton take the game to Ayr as they ended a run of five straight away defeats in 2019.

The away side went close on a number of occasions in both halves, hitting the post shortly before getting the equaliser.

Johansson insisted his side deserved more from the game for their efforts, and praised their ability to come from behind to earn the draw away from home.

He told the Tele: “I felt we should have won the game.

“In the first half it was a little bit nervy from us but I felt we played alright. We created two or three half chances without hitting the target.

“They get the penalty from nothing and that gave them a lift. In the second half it was one of our better performances and I felt we were all over them.

“We kept possession well and created loads of chances and crosses into the box and we deserved three points.

“Away from home being a goal down can be tough.

“We have been losing some silly goals this season, and that goes down as one of them.

“The first goal is so important in this league, but the character we showed in the second half was really good and pleasing from the whole team. There wasn’t anyone you could pick out a bad game from.”

After the heavy loss to the Jags at the weekend and a quick turnaround, Johansson only opted for two changes to the starting line-up.

The Ton boss said with the amount of injuries to his first team, he had to stick with a similar side, with several youth players filling in on the bench.

However, he praised his side for performing well and for executing his game plan.

He added: “I had a lot on my mind after the Partick game.

“It was a strange one, we lost silly goals but we are short on players as well.

“We have a lot of experienced players out at the moment and we had young kids on the bench.

“There aren’t that many options but I felt this was going to be the team that would cause Ayr United the most problems.

“I didn’t want to change the shape and that’s why we kept Jim McAlister at centre-back.

“We set the system up to counter-attack and to cope with them and we knew we could hit them on the break with the strikers we had against them.

“It worked well, we should have done better in a few counter-attacks, we didn’t get the final ball right or we didn’t hit the target, but in the end we got our just rewards.”