NEW Morton skipper Sean McGinty admits that he has big shoes left to fill after replacing Jim McAlister who hung up his boots a fortnight ago.

The 27-year-old English centre-half said that taking over the captaincy was a proud moment but he is adamant that the hard work starts now as he looks to help Ton steady the ship after a winless run of seven games.

He believes that the last fortnight hasn’t been good enough as Ton slipped to their third defeat in four games and called for his team-mates to bounce back on Saturday should Ton be able to travel to the Highlands to face Inverness.

He told the Tele: “It was a really proud moment for me, being chosen as the new captain.

“Jim has obviously been great for the club over such a long period of time.

“He’s a great personality and most importantly a leader in the dressing room.

“He’ll be a big loss and I’ve now got some massive shoes to fill.

“I’m proud to take on that extra responsibility of course, but nothing changes for me.

Chris Millar pays tribute to Jim McAlister after the Morton skipper retires

“I need to keep on playing and performing to the required standard and just keep on being consistent in that sense.

“Obviously I’ll need to be a bit more vocal with the lads in and around training and the dressing room and hopefully we can get a couple of decent results over the next few weeks because it’s been tough the last few times we’ve played.

“It’s been disappointing, if I’m being honest. We’ve only picked up one point out of our last nine at home which isn’t good.

“We’ve not taken our chances and we’ve conceded sloppy goals in the last two games.

“But every team goes through a bad patch throughout the season, I think this is our first one in all honesty.

“We’ve been really solid throughout and we’ve been in games for the most part.

“The only time we’ve been badly beaten is when we played Raith away.

“We’ve got a lot to build on, we’re still positive and ultimately there’s still a lot of games to go.

“We’re looking forward to this weekend if it goes ahead. We’ve got to plan right and prepare and hopefully come back down the road with three points.

“It was a sore one to lose the last time we were up there last season. We played really well to get it back to 2-2 and then [Nikolay] Todorov scored with the last kick of the game.

“Hopefully we can put that right this time around."

McGinty believes that the new additions of attacker Kazaiah Sterling and shot-stopper Jamie Butler are worthy acquisitions going forward.

The former Partick Thistle defender says that they have provided the squad with a much-needed boost going into the latter part of the campaign.

McGinty said: “We’ve got a few new faces in and it’s given the boys a bit of a boost. We had a good session this morning, so we’re confident we can come out the right side of it and push on.

“The new boys have looked good, Kaz [Sterling] has trained three times with us now. It was hard for him to come on as a sub for his debut for 20 minutes, especially having only arrived the day before essentially.

“He’s looked sharp in training and Jamie Butler has come in to assist Aidan [McAdams], which gives him someone to bounce off.

“He’s a bit more experienced too, so hopefully he can put his points across and help the defence out as well."