rgreig

Yes, there are many options now that are low cost and low hassle for the club - PayPal I think is a very good option but Klarna as someone mentioned is also now pretty popular. With Paypal as a retailer you can have recurring payments set up as you describe, and the customer has the security of knowing they can cancel it themselves. By all means offer a deal for someone willing to pay for the whole season up front, but I think in 2022 any club at our level should be thinking about the revenue stream throughout the year therefore the "cashflow during the summer" is probably less critical than it once was. Even just using the tiny sample set of this thread it is clear there is demand for more flexible payment options and if done right that could be harnessed to increase turnover over the course of the season.

It has always surprised me that football generally sticks to such a simplistic pricing model. It's particularly hard to justify now with an electronic ticketing system where they could have a more dynamic pricing model (e.g. adjust the price of midweek fixtures, have "buy 10 matches get 1 free" deals etc or throw in drinks/food in some packages). Are there any league rules preventing this or are clubs pretty much free to charge whatever they want? Even if direct debit is a hassle to manage from the club's perspective you can do that quite easily now with a Paypal recurring payment (and I think the club should support Paypal anyway). If their ticketing provider doesn't support it they should find a new ticketing partner.

I think in a better team that Maxwell's natural flair could give us an edge. Not necessarily what we needed this season in a lot of games but I would definitely be trying to keep him if we are genuinely ambitious for next season.

Pretty much spot on in my opinion. Regarding Albinson, your point is more of a commercial one but putting that to one side I'd be happy to keep Albinson since I think he is a capable backup keeper. If we can sign both Maxwell and McInroy that would be amazing and would show real intent by Smith. Keeping hold of Adeloye would be essential since he is the only person we have that I think is a good centre forward at our level. Paul Smith impressed last night and although that was just one game, having both him and Hewitt is like signing two new players really for next season. I remember Hewitt was decent before the injury but to be honest it was hard to judge at that point given the general tactics from the clown manager. We have to make sure we have decent enough options on the bench as well as the preferred starting 11 so I think the figure of four that was quoted by Bullen is a bit light. The only thing that I felt was a bit disappointing in Bullen's post-match interview was his reference to a "top half finish" - I hope the ambition is top 4 and is backed by a playing budget to achieve that.

That's fair and a lot of it is due to terrible managerial appointments. At some point even by the law of averages they will appoint a manager who isn't an idiot and who will be able to do well with their budget and facilities.

Yes, he is utterly useless. The second half where Maxwell ran half of the pitch and passed to him was also an example of his total ineptitude. I would start with Bryden and Adeloye on Friday - if Ashford thinks he is a centre forward he can pack his stuff and leave any time.

Another way to look at it is that if you were planning for next season, if Partick don't get promoted via the play-offs they would much rather have Ayr in the division than Dunfermline. Dunfermline will have a bigger budget than us and are unlikely to be as bad next season. So if I were Ian McCall or even a Partick fan I would want Ayr to remain in the division.

It is. The laws state you that a player should be cautioned if he "handles the ball to interfere with or stop a promising attack". Otherwise a direct free kick is awarded. This is covered in Law 12.

I would agree that if we do finish 10th then Bullen should quit. I watched some of the QoS game this evening on the stream (although I missed all the goals!). I thought Inverness were extremely poor but Queens worked very hard giving them little time on the ball. Not really many chances for either side in the second half that I saw. If we play like we did last week I think we are capable of coming away with a draw.

Yes, to be fair to Bullen yesterday's defeat was different from almost any other this season in the sense that we played really well for 80 minutes of the game. The last time we played really well was also in Fife - against Raith - and that day we came away with a 4-0 victory. With two games left he has to just keep the same approach and formation and hope that we take our chances and/or get some better luck. Also there is no way McAdams would lose the plot again. As someone else said, we are lucky Partick need to win next week. We also need QoS to lose midweek of course. If we could go into the Partick game needing a draw where they don't need anything then I think we could do it.

It must be a difficult one for the players mentally. We were so dominant it is still hard to believe we came away with nothing. But we squandered so many chances it was getting more tense as the match wore on. It was a pity Bryden was injured since we could have benefitted from replacing Ashford in the second half. Let's hope that he is available again next week. O'Connor coming off was pivotal, after that we struggled to create chances and we were under a bit more pressure. I hope that he will also be back next week! I think our only chance is to go for it and try to get our goal difference up, and that Bullen does not try a cautious approach and hope that other teams do us favours. I don't have any expectations of anything other than relegation if we end up in the play-offs. Does anyone think Bullen will leave if we are relegated?

I agree with those who have said that the stream is a lot better than it was but I do think that the first priority should be getting the basics right to deliver a very high quality stream. I think ours is arguably the poorest in the division. The camera angle makes it very challenging so I think it's essential that they construct suitable places in the ground to have cameras positioned. Then they also need to have the hardware encoders to deliver this at 1080p 60fps live. Once you have high quality footage from a few different angles you can then use that in premium features such as game analysis from the manager etc. which would be interesting for many people I think. It may also be viable to create extended highlights packages. It would be interesting market research to know if the number of subscribers to our matchday stream is similar to other clubs in the division.

I have just looked at the video of the goals but they seem to have got Maxwell and Reading mixed up? i.e. it says Goal F is Reading in the voting form and I am pretty sure that in the video F is Maxwell's equaliser!

I'm sure they'll go for the jugular. Or maybe not. Anyway, I didn't see today's match but sounds like it would have been very bad for my blood pressure. How did Paul Smith play when he came on? Was Kenyon injured when he came off?

I think it may be difficult for us to assess this anyway because they can choose not to file an income statement (and looking at the records at Companies House, they don't). I am not an accountant so happy to be corrected on this - also not sure if they are close to going above the threshold to be classified as a small company.

Yes, I agree. Maybe my expectations are just lower than some but I thought he was good in the first half and did really well to take on and beat defenders. His crosses weren't great but at least he did deliver balls into the box and on the third attempt Maxwell did connect (although he didn't get his shot on target). I think having both Adeloye and O'Connor on the pitch at the same time will make us more dangerous going forward.

I agree with a lot of what you've written. For me, while some games have been extremely frustrating indeed, the general trajectory under Bullen/Mathie has been improvement. I remember after that shambolic 3-0 defeat away to QoS, I was absolutely convinced we were going to be relegated. That game we lost 3-0 but if it had been 6-0 I don't think any Ayr supporter would have said it was unjust. Since then we have seen significantly better levels of commitment from the players and had some good results. It is very disappointing we are not already safe but as I say, given where we were just a few months ago it's not completely surprising. We will probably get a better idea of what Bullen plans on doing when we see who he releases at the end of the season. Until then I am going to reserve judgement. NB - I reserve the right to retract all of the above if we lose on Friday!!

I would agree with this - nobody could complain about the result. Ayr had some pressure in the first half without really looking like scoring but in the second half it was all Arbroath. Goes to show how poor we are when missing a couple of key players. I hope Arbroath go on to win all their remaining games, and the league. You certainly deserve it.

The positive for us was that I thought neither team showed much quality in the final third. In the first half in particular, Dunfermline were really poor - a Chalmers shot from outside the box being all that I can really remember. I know that our defence can be abysmal but I think we can offer more now going forward than either Morton or Dunfermline.

This is where I would put a good deal of the blame on McGinty. He is both the captain and a centre half so if I were Bullen I would be expecting him to be organising the defence at set pieces. I don't care if we had just lost a goal, I would expect professionals to be able to get the basics right. I am sure Bullen will know exactly who wasn't doing their job properly. My own view of how Bullen has done so far (or I should say Bullen/Mathie since recruitment is a big factor), is that with one transfer window they have significantly improved the team both in midfield and up front and moved us from being relegation certainties to having a realistic chance of staying up. If you compare our situation with Dunfermline (who I assume have a bigger budget) and it's clear that Bullen has got us into a better position than them. There are still deficiencies in the team that we can all see but the general direction is positive.

I agree. As I said earlier I missed the first 20 mins last night but I have just watched the highlights. Two simple goals from corners - carbon copies of each other, and then a complete half-wit getting a red card. It doesn't matter what formation or game plan you have, if you cannot defend corners you are going to lose.

I couldn't go to the match tonight due to a work commitment, and I got home just before McInroy scored so I missed the key bits. What was the formation after the first subs? What went wrong - was it the game plan or individual errors? I thought in the second half we did OK but we never really threatened their goal.

The question for me is what did Bullen mean in his post-match interview where he said it was a "wake-up call". Assuming that wasn't just a meaningless platitude, did he mean that it is a wake-up call for him and he's going to rethink the formation or was it more about individual players and their contribution?

Irrespective of what anyone thinks of Adeloye, it's very clear that Ashford is having very little impact up front on his own in terms of shots. I am struggling to think of a single shot he had on target up in Inverness and it was the same again today. Adeloye definitely created more opportunities and shots and it was just frustrating that Bullen took so long to make any changes when it was clear it was not working. The biggest issue in my opinion is that we are so narrow and Bullen needs to change the starting eleven to address that. I presume that Murdoch has tested positive for Covid so I hope that he will be back next week. I thought McGinty did well again today, he is one player who has really improved in recent weeks and I never thought I would be saying that.

Yes, it could well be the case that Bullen thinks that McGinty reduces the likelihood of relegation and therefore the financial impact of that. So the 40k or whatever it costs to have McGinty for another season could be a price worth paying. That doesn't necessarily mean he would have kept McGinty in other circumstances. Does anyone have an estimate of the financial impact to a full-time championship club of relegation to league 1? Also, one question for people who attended the Hub event - did anyone ask Bullen whether he was likely to play two up front and accommodate Adeloye and Ashford in the same team? Or is he set on making the 4-5-1 work?