MORTON boss Dougie Imrie says he takes full responsibility for his side's defeat to Arbroath.

The Ton manager admits the Red Lichties deserved their first three points of the season as his side never got going throughout the 90 minutes.

The Ton manager conceded that Dick Campbell’s men, who secured victory through goals from Dale Hilson and Michael McKenna, were the better side throughout the contest and he will take the blame for the loss.

Imrie told the Tele: "I'm disappointed as always to lose at home, or lose any game for that matter.

"I pick the team, so on that part I have got to take responsibility for the defeat. I don’t think we were at it at all for large parts of the game.

"I take my hat off to Arbroath, I thought they were excellent. They picked up a lot of second balls, were on the front foot a lot of the time.

"For me they wanted it more, but again when you are down there, teams are fighting for their life, they are going to come and battle, and that is what Arbroath were about."

The 39-year-old was critical of his side falling two goals behind for the third time this season and leaving themselves with it all to do to try salvage something from the game.

He said: "You can’t give teams two goals of a head start in this league.

"Generally the team that scores first in this league go on to win the games, that is just the nature of it, but you can see how close the Championship is.

"We are two wins from top, and one defeat from bottom, so it is very tight, but we have to be better than we were on Saturday.

"We had three chances in the first half and two in the second and just never put them in the net.

"Again it is the same story, against Ayr we had chances, maybe not as clear cut, but we did have chances.

"Jai was through one-on-one with the 'keeper and he just needs to put it away, it would have given us 10 minutes to try and get an equaliser.

"We had chances before Arbroath scored, and for their first goal I was a bit disappointed with the way we conceded it.

"It was a cross into the box, and it is a run at the back post who no-one picks up, so from that part I was disappointed.

"But I am not going to take anything away from Arbroath, they fully deserved their victory. I don’t think we deserved anything from the game."

Striker Jai Quitongo was given a second yellow card in the aftermath of the Morton goal in stoppage time.

Imrie insists the striker must learn his lesson as he picked up his second red of the campaign after getting sent off in the season opener against Falkirk in the Premier Sports Cup.

He added: "I never really saw it to be honest. Jai says he just tried to get the ball to try to get us back into the game and the boy has volleyed him and he ended up getting sent off.

"I don’t really want to get too much into it. I never saw it, but he needs to learn from that as well.

"That is his second red card this season, he needs to be more careful and cuter in what he is doing when he is on the pitch."