Thumper

Because Albinson is away to Hearts obviously.

Having not been there for a while, is the boundary wall not currently incomplete due to the new turnstiles? It wouldn't take much to upgrade it from its present "Barlinnie as it was in 1882" state and you have to imagine that the owner has at least some interest in external optics as well as how it looks from the inside. The senior management Q&As were there to distract from the narcolepsy-inducing football of the era. Less need for the board to continually appear in front of fans when the fans aren't asking so often for them to be sacked.

I resemble that remark. This is absolutely true, but it's a hell of a lot easier to come out of your 20s as a doctor rather than a smack dealer if you were lucky enough to grow up in Doonfoot rather than Lochside. On the other hand, the number of folk I know from Lochside who are total c***s who think that they're better than you is zero.

Is that solar panels on the railway end? I thought it was Cappielow at first. You're going to be over the moon when the upper level gets put in the SRE.

Gondoh (who is currently banging them out) now has as his home ground a place called the Dripping Pan. This is wild to me. My mates are pretty much evenly divided between people I knew when I was 21 and people I met at work. The exceptions are pals of the above two groups that I got to know, or Internet randos (who again skew heavily towards the "people I knew when I was 21" demographic. People forgot about Game of Thrones immediately. It was pretty remarkable. Nevertheless, if Brown Town continues what it promises then things will die down pretty quickly. Much like the Roberts years were very quickly tamped down when jobby came in.

Wasn't given 9 when he signed but he's still a 9.

Not beating Section B FC when kick-it-as-hard-as-you-can had worked swimmingly twice before would be embarrassing IMO.

Sticking to a style of play that you don't have the personnel for is sometimes a reasonable option if the assessment is that by changing the style you won't be any more successful, but will be less interesting to watch. Hull and Blackpool's stints in the Premier League are good examples. If you're going to get relegated anyway trying to shitfest it against teams worth 200 times what you are, you might as well go out and try to score four goals instead. Airdrie probably have one of the lower budgets in this league but it's not a huge span outside of Dundee United. Other than their mysterious inability to beat the most predictable manager in the SPFL, it seems they have the personnel to play as they wish. Talking them up for it is just patronising. Compare to Queens Park, who were playing suicideball even though they have plenty of money and did perfectly well until the final hurdle last season. Sticking with that was imbecilic and rightly resulted in the management getting unceremoniously dumped.

Interesting in the post-match that Tomlinson's move to right back was on the urging of McGeady.

Only in Scotland would VAR be introduced during a cup round of 16 and then only employed for two specific ties.

It's the middle of February. The notion that there will be any sort of season-changing right backs or strikers waiting to get loaned out at this point (and that Ayr's somewhat temperamental scouting system would have identified them) seems unlikely. Today's performance sounded hugely encouraging. Big move to bench Albinson and it was rewarded. It very much seems like Brown's getting people to step up. Beat Airdrie next week and things begin to look a lot more promising, especially if Dunfermline continue to self-implode.

This was precisely Partick Thistle's argument in 2020, hilariously.

Ninth is going to the wire anyway, and could be three or four teams on the final day. ICT would obviously be funniest. Ayr are certainly not safe. Dunfermline will be fine once their injury crisis is over. Queens Park it is.

I'd be awfully surprised if Aberdeen were willing to let a 25-year-old keeper away with a year on his contract without a fee. And a season-long loan is yet another banana peel which leaves Ayr in an awkward and unfavourable position at the end of the season if he lives up to expectations. (That said, yes, in a heartbeat). Who knows what's up with Albinson, but the club has to sort it out. His gaffes aren't even systemic (save for that they seem to often occur when he tries to save with something other than his hands) and you'd think that could get coached out.

gonnae no gie this p***k the time of day? Do people not actually realise who they're replying to?

In fairness, getting beaten regardless of performances by 12 men is about as good a dry run for next weekend as the team could have hoped for.

In fairness to Rose, it's still full-time football, and he's proven he can score against clubs of L1 calibre. I really can't see McGeady starting tomorrow. If it's your first big game in your new job you're not going to endanger it by putting your older mate who is clearly done on the team sheet. It's not as if Dundee United are going to be overawed by him.

I think directly saying that two of the only three Ayr players guaranteed to finish above Own Goal in the final tallies should be released is, in fact, a bit excessive.

Good to see that Chalmers has inherited Adeloye's position as person who is described as shiftless and unimportant if he doesn't carry the entire team for two weeks.

Also, "Bullen was let down by his recruitment" seems... historically inaccurate? Unless the argument is that Musonda, Kirk, Chalmers, Akinyemi etc were all Bullen but then Ghastly Glendinning took back over to force him at gunpoint to sign the rest. This window looks like another big mess and obviously punting the manager mid-window didn't help with that, but if Rose is going out on loan it's because Scott Brown doesn't want him at Ayr. This is somewhat rose-tinted. McCall also tried to redeem quite a few people who ended up being done jobbers. McCall has had decades in the dugout and had to make use of his own network to do what he could with very little real money. Of course recruitment's changed. "Go back to how McCall did it" is not really an option you get without, y'know, having McCall. Maybe you'll see Whittaker turning up with a notepad on a Tuesday night to take in League One games every week. Who knows. But it's not going to happen overnight.

Much like when Liz finally popped her clogs and no bus shelter could advertise trainers for about a month, this benefits nobody. A football club that can't run away buses is basically not fit for purpose. If the opinion of the owner is that fans should watch away games from the pub that he, rather than than club, owns, then he should be run out of town.

People blow their own limbs off accidentally in Scottish coal mining villages with improvised explosives on about a weekly basis. A non-trivial percentage of most clubs' normal home crowds would be up the road if they could get tickets. This isn't even a Scottish thing.

The "infiltrated by Celtic fans" stuff is a bit odd. The reason Old Firm games get as they do is because the away side has a substantial allocation who don't need to pretend they're there supporting someone else. This is surely far more appealing than being wedged into a tiny wee corner and spat on for 90 minutes by the mutants in the Govan Front. The revenue the club makes is dependent on total ticket sales, so even if one isn't going (because as noted it will be fucking horrible) it is obviously a good thing if Ayr sell out their allocation. Indeed the appointment of Brown is by itself going to boost the home support (and means Police Scotland will have a fun time checking them all for home-made hand grenades on the way in) and thus make Ayr more money.

Wasn't that what Hubgate was all about?

You been on the Millions? The Terrace is the bit you stand in. The Stand is the bit you sit in. What a brilliant language.