MORTON gaffer Gus MacPherson believes that his side will play better and lose after they ended their four-match losing streak in a cagey stalemate against Ayr United.

The Ton manager was pleased with his players' first-half performance against the Honest Men but was disappointed they couldn't build on it after the break.

While MacPherson says his it was far from the perfect performance, he believes that picking up a valuable point away from home is all that mattered on Saturday.

He told the Tele: “It was that type of game that if you can't win it, then don’t lose it.

“We’ve played better in recent weeks and lost so all that mattered was to come away from the game with at least a point.

“We’ll say that throughout the season, that when you’re playing away from home the most important thing is that you remain difficult to beat.

“I thought that we were reasonably comfortable in the first half and that in the second half we weren’t good enough.

“I’d stressed to the players to start playing short and to try and move Ayr United and to be honest our first ball was poor and meant that we couldn’t build anything in the game.

“We’ve taken a point which is the main thing and we’ll move on.

“I don’t know if I’m being pragmatic because Ayr United did get into some good areas, but I don’t think that they overly worked the goalkeeper. They had one shot that went over the bar and then one that clipped the top of the bar but was never going in.

“They didn’t really work Jack [Hamilton] so we’ll move on."

MacPherson had a full squad at his disposal for the first time in over a month after his players were hit with injury and Covid-19 issues in recent weeks.

The Ton boss added: “It was good to get some key players back into the squad like Gozie Ugwu and Kyle Jacobs.

“I think that last week it went unnoticed that we probably had four or five players missing.

“We’ve got everyone back, so it gives us that pleasant headache going forward."

The Ton boss hopes his players can build on their first clean sheet in five games after a difficult run of fixtures.

He said: “The run of defeats wasn’t really something that we’d looked to.

“We’d looked at the fixtures and they were difficult.

“You look at who we’ve played - Partick Thistle, Kilmarnock and Raith – they’re difficult games.

“When you’re away from home, if you can keep a clean sheet then you’ve got to be happy with that."