D'Jaffo

He knocked us back.

One of Considine, McGowan or Holt for the defence and then an experienced midfielder. I’m sure we were keen on Halliday in January but he opted for Motherwell on loan. Wonder if we’d still be interested in him.

Kevin Holt if he gets let go by Dundee United would be a good replacement if McGinty goes. Also simultaneously sorts out the left back issue.

Would like to see Alloa or Montrose come up. Haven’t been to Links Park before so nice to tick that off maybe. On the other hand Andy Graham is just one of the soundest guys in Scottish football and Alloa as a club are good peeps. Decent scran as well.

There’s no guarantee that would be the case though. First season after promotion would be incredibly tough but Livingston went up and managed to finish in the top six.

I mean they’ll already have received more money for finishing 12th than Dundee United will for winning the league. Were they not also recently taken over by new owners?

I never went to this game. However I still maintain that the following week against Arbroath when Sandy Stewart took charge had the best first half performance from any Ayr side I’ve ever seen. Arbroath couldn’t get near us for 45 minutes and we utterly destroyed them. It was 3-0 going on about 5 or 6.

Just realised I’m two years off as well. The game I’m on about took place in 2017 in League One.

Pretty sure they also got a penalty for f**k all and Jim Goodwin played centre back but spent most of the game lying on his arse.

Ultimately his tactics of simply shoehorning his best midfielders into a team will only ever get you so far. His teams never seem capable of grinding out results or winning games when playing absolutely gash. Everything is either going for him or all against him. I can see him getting Clyde back to League One absolutely no bother but I’m not sure they can back him enough to make the step to the Championship. If there was anyone in Scottish football that could take a shambles of a club with an amateur set up to the Championship then it would be Ian McCall.

Buckie were given plenty of advance notice that they didn’t have the sufficient stuff in place for promotion and they decided to ignore it. Hence why the teuchters quickly backed down after the faux outrage was ignored by the league. I hope Stranraer pump EK and the pound-shop Gus Fring though.

Last season it was a matter of days before we heard. That’s become the norm for us as well. I think it’ll be Tuesday or Wednesday when we hear but even then it’ll just be loans returning and out of contract players being let go. Doubt we’ll hear straight away about the likes of McGinty.

I’d rather Dowds stayed as you know what you’re getting from him. He’ll get you 10-15 goals in a season easily. If he goes then I’m not sure who’s readily available to come in but I think Brown will want someone who can hold the ball up and compete physically with centre halves.

Announced today he was off. I’d take him but I think he’s been angling for a move to Canada for a couple of years.

I got that impression as well. Just listened to the commentary of the fan game there and the guy talking said he asked Brown about signings and Brown confirmed that all signings this summer will be his own so it’ll be interesting to see the comparison of this summer to last summer.

People said this when signed Moffat and Geggan in League 1. You can sign former players and you can sign new players. All that matters is they’re good enough.

He was out quite a lot for Dundee United I think.

Think that’s the case with most managers. They’ll back their own players every day of the week. McGinty deserves a good send off but if we’re being totally honest he isn’t good enough if we want to progress. Can see this being a hugely busy summer for Brown and Whittaker.

I’ll go for Albinson, McGinty, McGinley, Smith, McHugh, Chalmers, Sanders, Dowds, Clarke, Amartey and Rose. Then you’d hope we’d be able to bring the loan players back.

Saw this earlier and thought it was interesting. I can’t even remember much about him from that season. Did he win our POTY?

Managers can only do so much with that budget though. Annan aren’t going to ever have a budget that gives a manager the chance to go beyond fighting relegation from League 1. There will be clubs in League 2 with more money probably. You seem pretty intent on discrediting anything that Murphy has done though. He knows Gibson quite well so I don’t see why he wasn’t responsible for that signing. Annan will be shopping in a pretty shallow pool for players given the budget and location. I think once he leaves it’ll be a case of realising how good he was now that he’s away.

Broony would’ve made Bangala a star. I’m sure of it.

Just wait until I get round to my South of Scotland top scorers that can replace Dowds.

You aren’t a fan of a guy who’s quite literally your clubs most successful manager?

No, I just noticed that some clubs down South are releasing their retained lists for next season and he was on Carlisles. I remember seeing him for Annan in the playoffs and thinking he was decent. Seemed to earn good reviews at the time. Plus Timmins coming back might mean he recommends one or two. I think Brown will have his own ideas on recruiting. I think Bullen relied very heavily on the scouting data as it was there. Brown might end up doing that as well but I can’t see us taking seven or eight punts on unknown players. One or two maybe but I think we’ll be after more established players.