rgreig

Is McGinty really injured or has he been dropped after his shambolic display at Firhill? McAllister at right back and Fjortoft and Muirhead at CH is an improvement.

I was there and I had to watch the highlights to see what actually happened at the third goal. It didn't make any sense to me at the time and even after watching it I still can't believe it.

In Hopkin's last game in charge, he said that everyone underperformed. I am not sure how the pitch conditions impacted keeping a back 4. Unless Maxwell and Salkeld were carrying knocks I think they should have started, with McAllister playing right back. I have just watched the highlights and as I thought at the time, Duffy needs to seriously consider dropping McGinty for the next few games. He was culpable in at least two of the goals and certainly should not be captain; he is becoming a figure of ridicule.

You know he's a liability when the opposition fans are singing "there's only one Sean McGinty". He is quite unusual - not bad generally but prone to having many moments of complete and utter ineptitude that cost games. The game in Inverness was clearly not just a "one-off".

Clearly there should be a way to buy using cash or card in person, on the day. Not supporting that is needlessly alienating paying customers. However there does need to be a simple and frictionless online purchase capability, as is the case in other places like cinemas (I cannot remember the last time I bought a cinema ticket at a cinema). I don't have much experience of the systems at many of the club's in the league, but Ayr's is really not great in terms of the UX. It is quite hard to get right, nobody should underestimate that. Hamilton's was definitely better than Ayr's. I don't understand why the clubs don't collaborate to get a single system used throughout the league - it would make a consistent experience, with a single login and should also enable the clubs to negotiate better commercial terms.

Not in 2021 for a fixture hosted by a large and established club.

Did we not have around 400 at Hamilton? If so surely we should take more than that to Firhill, particularly if we beat Morton? Really frustrating if there is no other way to purchase tickets - I also live about 15 mins from Firhill!

I don't think we can necessarily assume that Duffy is OK with being a stopgap manager for an extended period. He may say to Smith that he is willing to stay on but not just until a candidate we like better becomes available. I don't think many people would be OK with that kind of arrangement (but who knows what Duffy has said to Smith). Smith also said in the interview with Graham Speirs that we are not ready as a club for promotion. So it sounds like he is looking for someone who is looking to build foundations - i.e. with the academy, training facilities etc. - rather than chase promotion as quickly as possible. I have no idea what Duffy contributes in that regard. If that is something that he is motivated to work on, and he continues getting results that show we aren't going to be relegated then I could see him fitting into Smith's plans beyond this season. I also think that Grant isn't going to last much longer at Dunfermline so that does complicate the timing a bit.

I'll freely admit I had no idea about this rule. I expect that I am not alone which may account for the lack of outrage previously on the topic. There isn't any excuse of course from the club's perspective - they pay someone to know and implement the rules and that person has presumably cost the club some money (even if we are not fined, we lose the share of the gate receipts from the next round). At least we have outdone our county rivals - they merely fielded one ineligible player whereas we did 100% better.

Yes I thought it was a very good interview too - I am going to remain subscribed to his podcast for a while to see if the content is generally good. I thought he asked the questions that most Ayr fans would want to be asked and did so in a way that was neither sycophantic (like B&W TV would have been) nor threatening to the interviewee, which is a difficult balance to strike. He had also clearly done some research so was well prepared. On the point around Hopkin, I assume that he doesn't want to slate a former employee and it could have been part of their compromise agreement that neither side could publicly criticise the other. Saying that we were "hard to watch" made it pretty clear how he felt about him, as a fan of Ayr Utd. Smith did come over well - a recurring theme being about building a legacy and things that will remain once the players and managers who are there today or tomorrow are long gone. He also made clear that there had been what he saw as chronic underinvestment latterly in the Cameron years and that we are not ready for promotion yet (as a club) which was surprisingly honest.

Yes, exactly. I don't think it can just be a new manager bounce when several different players have been selected, in a different formation and approach to the game. It will be interesting to see how we do against better teams than Dunfermline and whether we still have a coherent style of play. Win or lose if you can see a strategy and approach being developed it gives some hope. With Hopkin he may have had an approach but it was clearly doomed to failure. The only player I was frustrated with yesterday was McGinty whose first instinct is just to launch the ball wherever he is facing. If he could change that he would be a lot more effective.

Yes, sorry, to be clear I was comparing against bus travel. I was not aware that the advice to football clubs was explicitly for for individual car travel to matches and training. There are various studies that question the effectiveness of even 2m within an enclosed space like a bus - see this paper for (many) references: What is the evidence to support the 2-metre social distancing rule to reduce COVID-19 transmission? - The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (cebm.net).

Could this not be a deliberate risk reduction strategy? i.e. if you have a larger number of smaller bubbles of at most 3 people, and minimise contact in enclosed spaces outside those bubbles, then you should in theory reduce the chances of a larger number of players being infected simultaneously. How many of Ayr's Covid cases were linked to travelling on the bus together to Inverness? Do we know?

His record is pretty good - certainly at Dunfermline and QoS. Is there a back story to what went wrong at Dundee? His record there was almost Hopkinesque.

Roberts was poor but he was managing a part-time team with very limited budget. I bet Roberts could only have dreamt of the resources that Hopkin had. Whoever we get will either have a mixed record or be unproven at our level. I just hope we look at how their teams set themselves out and how well organised they are. If someone had done that with Hopkin it would have been clear he was never going to succeed here. I think Yogi's teams do try to play passing football, at least from what I have seen which is admittedly a bit limited.

I guess we just need to find 200 of us willing to put in 1k each and it can be done. Not impossible. I'd do it.

I thought the advert was fine - it's concise at least and covers the key responsibilities. It could perhaps have done a bit more to outline the overall vision and expected trajectory that the board has for the club though - a job advert is about sparking interest in people who may or may not be aware of what is happening at an organisation. You are right that a great candidate for the role may actually be ambivalent about football - and certainly may not support Ayr United! I hope they manage to find someone who is stronger on leveraging and driving the digital channel. I don't know the previous incumbent but I think it's fair to assume that aspect wasn't his strength.

These are the rules we all have to follow, they aren't specific to football. It seems to me that any club that feels they should not be playing the match can relatively easily use the above rules to end up with fewer than 13 players available for selection. You just need to declare symptoms to be required to self-isolate.

I think it's fair to say that the goal was bizarre, but the real question is whether Inverness deserved to win or not. I think they did - as the co-commentator on the stream said "Ayr are there for the taking" which wasn't in any way unfair. We didn't deserve to lose 3-0 or anything like that but there was only one team that even tried to play football. Even if we had fluked a goal of our own I don't think many people would have been happy with our performance (apart from the guy who does the interviews for B&W TV who clearly thinks we are awesome). Another relevant measure is how we have progressed since last season. I think we played Inverness away quite early on last season (the match where the Pixelot system tracked the linesman's head) and we came away with a draw, having surrendered a 1-0 lead. My recollection of that game is that we were on top and deserved the lead and most of us felt disappointed we didn't win. We are definitely much worse than we were last season at this stage.

I would be astonished if we could actually afford to get rid of him now. Does his contract not run until the end of next season? I think we are stuck with him until the nearer end of his contract. I don't think we'll ever be beaten by a large margin - it will be games like today where we are woeful and end up losing by the odd goal. The best we can hope for is avoiding relegation and perhaps this will enable the club to continue off-field restructuring. I am surprised that contracts in football management don't have clauses in them that allow termination based on certain performance conditions (e.g. win rate < x% over y games etc).

Never mind Hopkin, the B&W TV post match interviews are exactly how I imagine Pravda would have interviewed Stalin. "So, Comrade Hopkin, your 5 year plan is really working well isn't it, the mark of a genius I should say" "Yes, our wheat harvest is at record levels and our people could not be happier"

It's strange, it was definitely an attitude issue IMO. He was one of the laziest players I have seen at Ayr in recent years.

Adeloye definitely is getting fitter and improving. Maxwell was excellent, it's just his decision making that needs to improve a bit and I guess that's why he is on loan with us. Muirhead was a good captain, very vocal. Although he only came on for a short period at the end, I thought McAllister was very good and I hope he gets more game time starting next week. The only real negative for me was Afolabi who looked unfit. If we do manage to bring in another striker I can't see Afolabi getting much game time unless his fitness improves significantly. I thought tactically we were good, and our high press worked well (until the sending off obviously). I don't think in the second half our keeper had anything to do at all until the penalty. Overall Hopkin has bought quite a lot of goodwill from the fans from that performance - if we do that in the league we will pick up a lot of points. Very different style and approach compared with McCall which will see us pick a lot more points in Jan/Feb than a McCall team ever did.

I remember that match but I'd forgotten how frustrating that free kick was. I think it's great to have a solid base to build on - I can't remember the last time I felt we had really good organisation in defence - but we need to have more than that. McCall was in some ways the opposite - you always felt in every game you could concede. I don't think Killie were mediocre but we made them look good by giving them 60% possession and allowing them to pass. We have all seen Cameron a lot last season - both with us then at Alloa - and I think disillusionment with him will quickly set in. I think it will be tight for the top 5 places and while they will be up there I think teams like Raith will still be confident they can finish above them.

The official match stats were interesting - apparently we had three shots on target (I don't remember any apart from the powder puff free kick later in the game) and Killie only 5. Given we were under constant pressure, I think it shows how well our defence did and I have no complaints about how McGinty has done. That part of the squad is night and day from last season and you can't ask much more than that at our level. However as others have said, Hopkin needs to rethink midfield for Saturday and I think he has got players to do that. If he doesn't, then I have no hope for him making any kind of success of this season.