MORTON gaffer Dougie Imrie believes that his side's 5-0 rout over Dunfermline Athletic was the first step towards making Cappielow a fortress.

The resounding win was Ton’s first victory at Cappielow in the Championship since March 2020 and Imrie believes that a formidable home will be crucial in the battle for survival.

He warned his players not to get too carried away by their emphatic victory over the Pars and has stressed that it's vital to keep the pressure on Ayr United when they go head-to-head at Somerset Park tomorrow.

He told the Tele: “One of the first things that I wanted to do when I started was to turn Cappielow into a fortress, and we’ve made a positive start in trying to do that.

“But it’s only one game, we need to move on from it and we need to make sure that we’re doing it week-in, week-out.

“If we can get that type of performance every week then we’ll be fine, but like I said to the guys after the game on Saturday, we cannot get too ahead of ourselves.

“We need to build on that and make sure we do the same again down at Ayr tomorrow and close the gap on them.

“It was good to get the guys goals too, especially the strikers.

“I thought Gozie Ugwu was outstanding. His hold-up play was second to none and, although I'm disappointed for him that he couldn’t get a goal for himself, his contributions to the team were immense for us.

"It’s not the first time he’s done that this season.

“That performance on Saturday was the kind of commitment that I'm looking for from everyone, so they’ve set a standard for themselves.

“If we play like that every week then we’ll win more games than we’ll lose which is really promising.

“We can't get too high and we can't get too low. We want to remain level headed because there are still a lot of games to go and a lot of football to be played.

“All we’ve done is taken the first step but it’s been one that’s in the right direction.”

While Imrie was delighted with his side's clinical performance up front on Saturday, he says goalkeeper Jack Hamilton and the Ton backline also deserve plaudits for keeping a valuable clean sheet.

The 38-year-old boss said: “If you win clean sheets, then nine times out of 10 you’re going to win football matches.

“I was saying to the players at half-time on Saturday that at no point do they concede, that they must keep a clean sheet and thankfully we were able to do that.

“I’m absolutely over the moon for everyone connected with the football club after the positive start to the new year that we’ve had."