HMIP

There was absolutely no reason to think Moore wouldn’t get back to full fitness.

Perhaps, but it does indicate you can make a valued judgement about whether a player might step up. A club like Ayr with our budgetary constraints will rarely be in a position to sign players that are already proven at championship level and aren’t in demand elsewhere. That being the case, we will always have to be taking a gamble on players we feel have potential with the aim of developing them into what we need. There’s hardly a player in our team at the moment that was a proven commodity at championship level before we signed them.

A 6 month contract is hardly a good deal. And it’s not like it was a career threatening injury either. We were told he’d be able to resume training in August with a return in October which is exactly how it panned out. I think you can only go with the best medical advice when making these decisions. The Docherty situation was arguably different in that there seemed to be real doubts about whether he was finished, though I would still say that we were plain lucky that he didn’t perform as he did against Dundee Utd at Somerset a couple of months earlier or we would have been facing the same mess that we now face with Moore. in the end, I’m not suggesting Moore is irreplaceable, but he has averaged nearly a goal a game for us, which in any non-Shankland era of Ayr United would be worthy of note. I can’t think of another time when a striker could score 27 goals in a single season and yet not get in the team. There seem to be a few on here that think we’ll just pluck someone better out of nowhere. More likely we’ll end up with another carthorse like El Alagui.

I think you are mistaken. I don’t remember us previously giving him a contract when he was injured. The long term head injury occurred when he was on loan from Motherwell. He missed about 2 months of the previous season also when he was on loan. He was fit when he signed for the league title winning year after being freed by Motherwell and started the season like a house on fire. He did pick up a minor injury that put him out for a few weeks, which unfortunately for him prompted us to take a punt on a certain overweight no-hoper. Don’t recall him being injured when we re-signed him for last season either. His biggest issue over the last couple of seasons was being Shankland’s understudy when he had neither the technical ability or physical presence to be a straight replacement,

As if performing at League 1 level is no indicator at all. It was no surprise that Shankland stepped up and I for one am not remotely surprised that Nisbet is scoring goals at Dunfermline despite his struggles 2 or 3 seasons back. In any case, Moore was performing well at championship level as far back as 2013. Maybe Shankland just spoiled us a bit and raised expectations over what a decent striker looks like. I think back to dross like Ross Jack, Ian Gilzean and Brian Bilsland and realise there is a middle ground to be found when assessing a player’s worth.

That would imply a level of tactical nous that McCall never possessed.

It never occurred to McCall or anyone else that if the medical prognosis on Moore was accurate he would be coming to full fitness just in time for his contract to expire ahead of the January transfer window? Moore undoubtedly suffered in the shadow of Shankland who was a once in a generation Rolls Royce of a striker. But the evidence of the last 3 or 4 seasons is that Moore is an entirely decent penalty box striker who will score goals if given half decent service. Take a look around the Championship. How many teams have forwards you’d be desperate to have at Ayr? Dobbie, Shankland, Nisbet and probably Nicky Clark are about the only 4 I can think of. That McCall is about to benefit from his own negligence makes this all the worse.

The other way of looking at is that he got injured playing for the club and we didn’t back him with a decent contract even though we had medical advice he’d be back in October. I take the point his injury record isn’t great but it’s a 2 way street. We were happy to short change him in the Summer, so we can hardly complain now if someone offers better terms. I can only hope he signs, but if you’re information is correct, it seems pretty clear he is off, most likely to Partick. The other consequence is that we’ll have to stick with Doolan until the end of the season and hope he can make some kind of contribution. I suspect we’ll end up having to play McCowan through the middle as Moffat and Doolan together will never work.

What do you base that on? The likelihood of us finding a better option than Moore is very low. We know from past experience that player availability in January is a major problem and those few decent players that come available will follow the money. One of the few strikers that will be available in January is.....Craig Moore. This prove your fitness approach to contracts could have burned us last year with Docherty but we got away with it because he didn’t really get back to fitness until after the transfer window so probably wasn’t in demand. Looks to me that we won’t get away with it this year. Giving a short term contract to a player who was always expected to be back around October and therefore back to full fitness in time for the January window was absolute stupidity on the part of the club. McCall will no doubt argue that we had Doolan as first choice and that no one (who hadn’t seen him play recently) could have predicted how little impact he was going to make therefore Moore was never a big priority, but now we appear to be facing a big problem when there are other areas of the team that need strengthening,

Check out the pictures of Dunfermline’s pitch on their match thread and you’ll get an indication of how much that nugget junior referee shafted us this morning.

Bit of homophobia as well.

Talbot at Somerset! Revenge.....mibbe.

When was the last time we were at Pittodrie? Seems like a very long time (mid-80s?j.

Forrest has scored over 50 goals for us in less than 200 games which is s pretty decent return for any midfielder. I think he’s still only 22/23 despite the fact it feels like he’s been around for years. Like Crawford, he has also suffered a lot from being played out of position for long periods. 15-20 goals a season seems a bit unrealistic - it’s hard enough finding strikers who can return that number.

Have Airdrie actually made it beyond League 1 level (on merit) since they re-spawned in 2002? And no, you can’t count Clydebank’s history...

Can only assume he’s had a setback of some kind as Kerr was talking about him being fit for after our wee mini break. Have to feel a bit sorry for him as he seems to have had wretched luck with injuries.

Shock horror, Airdrie fans still trying to invent some basis to blame Barr for their demise. Wonder whatever happened to that dossier they submitted to the police accusing Barr of...well who knows really. Think the conspiracy theory was that Airdrie’s ground would be dismantled Lego style and re-located to Ayr. For the record, Airdrie folded because of their own board who sold Bloomfield with absolutely no clue where they were going next. Then there was north Lanarkshire council who stalled for years on planning permission for the new stadium. In the end, Airdrie over extended themselves on s stadium they couldn’t afford and was at least twice as big as it needed to be - do they even open 3 of the stands these days? I may be wrong, but was it even Barr Construction that forced them into administration? And let’s not forget the role of Steve Archibald. Promised the earth and delivered nothing.

I’m not sure what more Barr could have done during that period to build a new stadium. He made it clear his personal wealth didn’t stretch to funding it out of his own pocket and therefore required the retail park at Heathfield as part of the deal. I also vaguely remember him mentioning that devolution meant we didn’t qualify for substantial grants that a similar sized club in England would have received. The bottom line is that south Ayrshire council absolutely screwed us. They approved the stadium but added utterly ridiculous and financially unsustainable conditions while at the same time refusing permission for the retail park. I remember the red Tory who was the local MP at the time (Osborne?) congratulating us on getting planning permission for the stadium when it was clear we effectively had no means to fund it. I also remember a figure of £200k+ being quoted at the time for the judicial review alone which took about a year to be heard only for the Scottish Government to drop their opposition the day before it was due to be heard. It really is a sorry tale - I’m not sure what happened in the end, but I think ill health and internal politics at Barr Construction forced him out and he seemed to lose the will or the means to keep backing us at the point. I’d criticise him for not binning Dalziel who was a quite appalling manager, but I wouldn’t criticise him for the failure to build a stadium.

Sad news about Bill Barr. Brought some good times to the club after years of going nowhere. Don’t suppose we’ll ever know now why local politicians fought so hard to stop him realising his dream of a new stadium that would undoubtedly have been his true legacy to the club. Given the millions he poured into the club, he deserves to be well remembered though it is regrettable that so many view those years as a lost opportunity. Great memories though, especially in the cups.

Think you might be exaggerating a tad on Doohan. 4 games on the trot? I make that yesterday, Partick, Morton and Dundee. He was certainly at fault for Morton’s second, but that’s about it. He might have done better at the opener yesterday, but just looked like a classic example of the keeper spreading himself and the ball going through his legs. The 3rd took a clear deflection that would have wrong footed any keeper, especially on that awful sticky pitch. The only keeper I might swap Doohan for is Scott Fox, though even he seems to be having some wobbles this season. Think you might be expecting miracles from the keeper when we should be focusing on the poor defending in front of him. I’d get Bell back in the team and he can hopefully do for Roscoe what he did for Rose.

There was at least one coin thrown and at least one daft lad lifted. But like I say, utterly moronic from the steward so plenty of blame to go round.

Not sure what to say about the incident with the steward. I’ve seen ball boys throwing the ball away like that, but pretty moronic from someone who is theoretically a professional. In reality of course, most of them are just minimum wage rent-a-goons without a brain in their head. Think there were 2 or 3 objects thrown before one of the other stewards had the sense to move that grinning walloper out the road.

Think it was the frustration of chucking another game away with defensive howlers. First half was fairly even but we dominated the first 20 minutes of the 2nd only for Docherty to give the ball away at the 2nd - very similar to Morton’s 2nd goal last week. I applaud the quality of football we are playing at times, but we are also terribly guilty of over-playing in bad areas. Not sure what Harvie and Forrest we’re doing at the third, apart from standing looking at each other. Maybe it’s just a consequence of having so many youngsters on the park and too many experienced defensive type players sitting in the stand.

I’m going to the pub.

Fair point. If I ever stand as a parliamentary candidate, this is exactly the sort of out of context social media post that’ll come back to bite me on the arse.