rgreig

Yes, completely agree. I think our approach made Kilmarnock look better than they actually are, but there is no doubt they deserved to win. The poor penalty decision has just allowed Hopkin to deflect attention from our own deficiencies (no matter how frustrating that decision was). I think if we'd actually gone in 1-0 down in the first half it may have helped us because Hopkin would have had to change it sooner. I doubt we'll start a game with that team again this season. If we play like that against any team at Somerset then the fans will be on Hopkin's back very, very quickly.

I'd settle for a good start to next week.

In his post-match interview, I believe Hopkin stated that a couple of the Burnley players "turned up" and that they would "see where that leads" (or words to that effect). While that doesn't mean we are getting any of them it does imply that Ayr are interested in more than one of the players who were involved in the game against us. Whether those players are keen to join on loan is another question but I assume that point had already been established at a high level before the game.

Yes, completely agree and to be honest it's breathtakingly naive if Smith even thought for a second that his actions a few months ago would have made any difference to the player's decision now - assuming that money was the reason for Smith's decision. As chairman (or owner of any business) his responsibility has to be to the club or business, not being nice to people wanting to leave.

Yes, I think he did well for us last year and would have addressed an obvious gap in the team. However I was suggesting that our ability to sign him would be based on the terms we were offering primarily rather than how we treated him last year. I have no idea whether we actually approached him or whether Hopkin rates him of course! ETA (I have only now seen the tweet - clearly we did want him)

100% this. Ultimately money talks (and I would have no issue with him taking the best financial offer). We were kidding ourselves if we thought that playing for us for a few months and being kindly released would have changed his thinking for one second.

I think this is very fair, but the key question is whether we have the right people in place in key positions. I don't have enough visibility of the commercial aspects to judge, but I do know that the people running our media service do not have the skills or experience to do a good (or even just acceptable) job. We all saw the omnishambles of last season's streaming and yet those people are still running it. That makes me think that Smith is not able to make decisions detached from sentiment. If we extrapolate that to other key roles in the club then it would be a problem.

Great idea indeed. And the club could auction it at half time of the first derby match next season.

Yes, he falls into the "could spend the money more wisely" category for me.

McGinty to star in Euro 2024?

Yup, somebody in a coma would have put in more effort than Zanatta. And had a bigger impact too.

I wonder how many of the current squad he'll keep. I originally assumed very few but going by the post-match interview it doesn't seem like there is going to be a mass exodus. Is he going to have a bigger budget than Kerr did?

Does anyone know if Hopkin gets on well with Neil McCann? If he does then maybe we will see Inverness field an "experimental" side.

I would definitely play Moffat if he is fit but Dre is a waste of a jersey. I'd rather we just play a more defensive formation and play for a draw (assuming Morton lose to Hearts of course).

I agree, I think that it is to be welcomed that Smith is putting out his message directly on social media. In the past, a chairman would have spoken to a friendly journalist to get his point across but these days I think they need to use social media channels. However he will need to develop a thick skin and probably get someone to manage an account for him otherwise I think the level of abuse/trolling would get to him eventually. I think it was the late Bob Crampsie who said that football is different from other businesses because "people don't turn up at the IBM factory in Spango Valley every week to watch computers trundle off the production line". I hope that Smith isn't going to be pushed by the emotion of the game into changing direction too hastily. If things aren't working then revise the plan but five weeks isn't enough time to prove or disprove anything about a plan. Ever since the 3-2 capitulation at Morton it has been clear that this team is very fragile. I am not sure what Hopkin can do now - I can see he has been reluctant to slate the players publicly until now - but I don't think three at the back is working and he might as well revert to the formation we had when we took over and just play for the draw. If we can get two draws, given our slightly better GD that may be enough.

I tend to agree with this - we have to let him build his own team and then judge him on that. I have had jobs where I inherited a weak team and I would have been upset had I not been given a chance to replace the dead wood. I would question his judgement in playing a clearly unfit McCowan today though - I am not sure what that would achieve unless he thinks so little of the squad that a 50% McCowan is still better than the alternative. Barjonas I did think had potential - poor decisions about when to pass but at least drove us forward rather than lumping it.

I don't mind the commentary. I don't expect it to be perfect and as you say you can always just mute it. The bit that is really frustrating for me at least is the technical side of it. If they don't have the skills to run it they should ask for assistance. I am sure many of Ayr's supporters could help with various aspects of the service. I had emailed them right at the start and didn't even get a reply.

The most frustrating thing is the lack of improvement over the season. Basic technical things are poor - there is no excuse for not being able to deliver a high resolution stream at a good frame rate, particularly after having months to sort it out. Camera position may be harder but I still don't really see why it is impossible to resolve given that no fans are in the ground. The fact that the club isn't pushing to get this resolved does look like weak management - this is the only way supporters get to see their team therefore they need to realise how important it is.

I found the stream at Alloa the other week far better than ours - better camera angle, better frame rate. Inverness I haven't see again since the infamous game at the start of the season with the camera following the linesman's head - but with Pixellot manual camera operation they should be fine now. Our stream suffers from basic technical issues that are just unacceptable. Going down the divisions, look how good Elgin's coverage of our cup tie was compared with our tie against Clyde on Saturday.

It has been consistently awful since the start of the season but tonight they seem to be trying to ensure it is as bad as possible. We have by far the worst streaming service in the division. The club should find someone else to run it however it is probably a moot point since we are so close to the end of the season.

Yes, our stream is by far the worst in the division. Terrible frame rate, poor camera position, colour balance totally different on the two cameras. I've lost patience now, it's been really poor since the first game and barely improved. They clearly just don't know what they are doing and the club should find someone else to run it. Every other club does a better job of it than us.

Yes, and I'd happily pay his taxi fare to any destination in Scotland. One of the laziest players I have seen for some time at the club. Whatever you do in life you rarely succeed if you are bone idle. When Kerr tried to play him up front that was when I realised that he had lost the plot.

Exactly - we need to be trying 100% to win these games in the hope we get a draw with the prospect of some income. Given we're going to finish sixth or seventh (in all likelihood) we will have a drop in income from that compared with last year, which the cup could possibly offset.

I think there are only two realistic outcomes for Ayr this season - relegation or a finish just above the bottom two. On that basis, the chairman's target is honest. I do think our defence looks far stronger with Baird and Ndaba as the central pairing. I think that will save us - if either of them gets injured we are in deep trouble. Up front we are utterly inept. Walsh was poor today, and Zanatta is hopeless (we were far worse after he came on) - I can only hope that Hopkin realises this now and won't play him again. Maybe if Wright does come back from injury we will be better up front.

It's obviously hard for us because we haven't interviewed him, so I think people are being a bit unfair. If you look at his statistics at Livingston they are excellent, and subsequently much poorer (although his record at Morton was still better than Kerr's). Morton fans rightly point out the terrible signings and that surely had to have been a question during the interview that he presumably answered to the satisfaction of Smith. But we cannot say that his successes at Livingston were all due to other people, while his failures at Morton were all his fault - that clearly is not reasonable. I think we all need to trust the chairman and board to have interviewed rigorously. At least we'll know by September whether he has repeated the signing mistakes made at Morton!