Nelson

Always disappointing to have a match postponed, but can’t help thinking it would have been for the best today. 50mph winds will just turn the game into a lottery. Fingers crossed the forecast isn’t accurate.

No one wants Bangala? I’m shocked.

Charlie Telfer is League 1 standard. Most definitely not what we need to kick us on. Would be surprised if he hasn’t gone part time now.

Let’s not kid ourselves. Seeing Tomi fire the goals that take Dundee to promotion would be a wee bit painful.

That’s OTT to be fair. Kirk, Dipo, Murdoch, Dempsey and Mullin would walk into most teams in the division. I haven’t seen a better championship keeper than Albinson this season. Chalmers is inconsistent, but he is capable of real quality (hopefully his performance yesterday was just a one off and not evidence of his mind being elsewhere) and again is a wide player that most teams in the league would want. And for all the criticism at times, McGinty has barely put a foot wrong since Bullen came in.

Don’t know where we are with Bryden. He showed some potential last season then had an injury at the start of the season that’s meant he’s barely featured. A loan spell might be a good move for him. I think we need to face facts with Ashford. He has no first touch, no physical presence, no real movement, can’t head a ball, can’t shoot or finish. There’s lots of honest effort to be fair, but he’s honestly miles off it. Hard work catches the eye when a player comes into a team that isn’t doing well, but it’s not enough for where we are now.

Our midfield options are very one dimensional - Murdoch, Dempsey, Hewitt and Smith are all hardworking scrappers but offer next to nothing in the attacking third. McInroy has a better range of passing than any of them, can carry the ball up the park (as opposed to booting it in the direction he’s facing, which is a regular issue with our midfield], takes a good set piece and could probably score 8-10 goals over a full championship season (he might be the best striker of a ball I’ve seen at Ayr since Ryan Stevenson). Personally, I think every club in the championship would want him if he became available. Which I don’t think he will, so it’s all just pointless chat.

Think you’re twisting his words a bit. Not sure what the source of your quote is, but he clearly never said that he doesn’t care about the club. Comments from Mathie and Bulllen at the time were very complimentary about his overall professionalism. Journalists always pot stir a bit when a player “crosses the divide” - if he did say that crossing the divide didn’t bother him, it’s hardly a hanging offence. Suspect it’s pretty academic as I very much doubt he’ll be available in January.

Doesn’t seem that big a deal to me. He’s not responsible for their Twitter account and don’t see anything controversial about wanting to play at the highest level possible. Folk seem to forget that Shankland had verbally agreed to sign for us then disappeared off to Morton at the last minute. No hard feelings there…!

Why, what did he say?

You must have been at the burger van when Accies had a sitter cleared off the line. We never looked like scoring from open play.

Keep reminding myself of the progress made over the last year, but there’s no escaping the fact that our only tactic is to hit Dipo early, and since he had an absolute stinker today, we just looked completely toothless. Hopefully we can add a different type of midfielder (we’d be nuts to knock back McInroy if he was available), as we desperately need a Plan B at times.

You clearly haven’t witnessed David Bangala.

McKenzie is our 2nd best striker at the moment. He at least offers a physical presence and can hold up the ball a bit. Ashford and Young are just ineffective. Not really sure where we are with Bryden - he’s probably the one that might benefit from a loan period. I guess the bottom line is that we need more quality up front.

Paul Hartley back as Cove manager…. Lots of pride swallowing all round!

100k for a 16 year old would be a great bit of business. I doubt we’d get much more than that if he broke into the first team for a couple of seasons, and realistically that could still be 2 or 3 years from now.

Surely the biggest blunder in recent years was Jackson Longridge? Looked more than decent but didn’t seem to get on with Mark Roberts. He’s spent pretty much his entire career a level above wherever Ayr have been.

He broke through under Burley. He was part of the team that won the league under Dalziel. I’m presuming he fell out with Dalziel, on the basis that everyone else did in the end.

Gregg Hood was a really decent prospect as well when he first broke through. Pretty sure he was on the periphery of the Scotland under 21s. Can’t really remember where it went wrong for him, but he was another who seemed to fall out with Gordon Dalziel and then sunk without trace.

Any risk of the game being postponed?

That’s a bit harsh on McAllister. He was excellent against Raith and didn’t do a lot wrong against Partick or Raith (despite having essentially no defensive cover at right back in both games). Playing Mullin at right back would surely be a massive waste as we badly need a goal threat in the wide areas given how defensive we are in the middle of the park and how limited our striker options are beyond Dipo.

Dipo and Tomi up front would be brilliant, but can’t see it happening. At the end of the day, Tomi got into double figures in a properly lousy Ayr team. And at the moment, McKenzie, Young and Ashford are taking it in turns to be not good enough as a partner for Dipo.

Queens Park are playing the sort of football we were in McCall’s last season in charge. The common denominator is Sandy Stewart. I’m not going to revisit the debate about whether we should have appointed him manager (though I was surprised at the time that we didn’t), but he does seem to be a top notch football coach.

Our recruitment has been real feast or famine stuff over the last year. Akinyemi, Dempsey, Musonda, Kirk and McInroy have been real gems. On the hand, Bangala, Gondoh, Ashford, JML and Young have been largely dreadful. Hopefully we can make some good moves in January.