Crawford Rae tells David Hopkin his starting line-up. Source.
It's the final match of the season at Cappielow: Morton host Airdrieonians. Today's result will decide whether Morton hang on to their Championship place or go down to League One. Either way, it's the final game under ownership group Golden Casket. The club will become community owned next month.
Morton are up by one goal after winning 0 - 1 Tuesday in Airdrie.
Morton have never before played a competitive match on May 21st. Today's game is live on BBC Alba. It's Morton's fourth Friday night game this season.
The club is allowed to admit 500 spectators for this game. It will be the first and only match at Cappielow this season to have supporters in the stands. The last game played in front of live spectators at Cappielow took place on March 7th, 2020. Tuesday's game in Airdrie also had 500 spectators.
Morton in 2020-21 have been a very low-scoring team. They scored 22 goals in 27 league matches, or 0.81 per game. That's their worst goals per game average since 1987-88. The top scorer was Aidan Nesbitt with 4 goals, which ranks as the club's worst best of the post-WWII period.
2020-21 was also one of Morton's infamous three manager seasons. David Hopkin managed 10 games, league and cup. Anton McElhone managed 13. And Gus McPherson managed 15, counting today's.
If Morton win this playoff it will be the third year in a row that the ninth-place Championship team has stayed up.
If Airdrieonians win they will end an eight-year run in tier III. Since their second coming they have played six seasons in tier II and thirteen in tier III.
[Morton win 3 - 0. Goals by Muirhead (x2) and Oliver. Morton stay up.]
Also:
Premiership playoff final, first leg (yesterday):
Dundee 2 - 1 Kilmarnock
League One playoff final, second leg (yesterday):
Dumbarton 0 - 1 Edinburgh City
Dumbarton hold on to their place in League One.
Developments
The SWF proposes to play the 2020-21 Championship North and South seasons in June and July. Morton Women are in the Championship South.
Ayr United have entered into a strategic partnership with English club Burnley.
Challenge Cup:
The format and dates for the 2021-22 Challenge Cup, now called the SPFL Trust Trophy, were announced yesterday. There will be colt teams again, but because of Covid there will be no teams from other football associations involved this year.
League Cup:
The 2021-22 League Cup groups should be announced before the end of the month, if things spring back to the way they were organized before Covid.
How will having five teams in Europe affect the format? One way to tweek it would be to give the five European clubs a bye into Round Two, where they would join the eight group winners plus the top three second-place sides. But giving five clubs a bye leaves only 39 for the group stage. To ensure each group has five teams a third tier-V club could be added to the unseeded pot. Which one? Fraserburgh were clearly second in the Highland League with three wins in three starts (3.00 points per game) and a +15 goal difference. BSC Glasgow were second in the Lowland League based on points, with 30 points in 13 games (2.307 ppg). But East Kilbride and Bonnyrigg Rose each had 29 points in 12 games, which gives a better points per game average (2.417). East Kilbride had a goal difference of +26, Bonnyrigg +23 and BSC +22.
An alternative to having three tier-V clubs would be to cut back to one (which should be the pyramid playoff winner Kelty Hearts) and to turn one of the groups into a group of three clubs. Instead of having five clubs that play each other once, for a total of four games each, this group would have three clubs that play each other twice for a total of four games each, which would allow their point totals to mesh with those of the other seven groups.
If there are five byes then the top seeded teams would be the other seven Premiership clubs plus Hearts, and the second seeded clubs would be teams 2 to 9 in the Championship, which would save Morton a place in the second-seed pot. Is there an advantage to being second-seeded? Not really; in fact it seems to have prevented Morton from hosting a Premiership opponent at Cappielow; and has not prevented Morton having two other Championship clubs in the same group.
[I missed the announcement this morning. There will be three tier-V clubs in the group stage: Kelty, Brora and East Kilbride. EK and Fraserburgh drew lots for the third spot.]
