The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[ayrunitedfw]

I honestly don’t see how we pick these charlatans up to get us over the line. 

[Lochwood]

The worst we are gonna get is the play offs  Morton have a really difficult run in as well but they have improved under there new manager  and Arbroath with that result today hold all the ace cards with both ourselves and Morton playing them , so it’s in there own hands, who would you back Hopkin or McPherson ?I’d say we are favourites for that, he rightly tells us that he has told the players in no manner was that exceptable  today will he get a reaction after shouting at  them we’ll see on Tuesday but fair dos they deserve that, and big problem is quite a few couldnt care a f—- where we finish as they won’t be hear, clear as day Walsh and Chalmers are awfull but know they are playing week in and out as we’ve nothing to bring in, Hopkin clearly thinks the best of the youth are not good enough, you look at most of the other teams they have 3/4 players in and bedded in, what do we have, Mccowan boy is trying his best but can’t do it on his own and if we do go down he’ll be off for definite.

[rb123!]

4 minutes ago, ayrunitedfw said:

I honestly don’t see how we pick these charlatans up to get us over the line. 

Have a prayer, lots of them!!

[ATLIS]

1 hour ago, diegomarahenry said:

Today was fucking awful.

Clyde packed the middle of there defence, allowed us to use the wings knowing that we only have 5’6” forwards. Marked McCowan out the game and we were absolutely toothless. 
 

Walsh was dreadful, Miller was pointless playing a team with a 7-2-1 formation, having one of the attacking midfielders on to try and add something to the attack would have been better. Hopkin appears to be blaming the players tonight and he may be right but there was no formation change until he brought Wright on and appeared to play him in midfield. 

playing quick long balls to forwards doesn’t work against a team playing 7 at the back that didn’t move much forward from Their own 18 yard line all game, Yet we kept doing it.

Tactically dreadful and performance wise dreadful as well. The sooner we can clear the decks the better. 
 

All Clyde had to do was find the player being marked by Jack Baird once and then sit in and it worked from early in the first half.

Second to every ball, no urgency or energy, far to many passengers in that team.

That's Hoppy-ball though. Big long balls and fight for second balls, it's not complicated but it relies on players working really hard to chase and fight for everything

52 minutes ago, edinburghhonestman said:

What bothers me is that even if Hopkin's preferred approach is hump and hope, he surely must be smart enough to realise we don't have the players to play like that?

It's clear Baird et al have been told to keep shelling it but Moffat isn't going to win a ball in the air, and none of the other front players are close enough to win the second ball.

I'm not giving up yet, but I'm worried both about whether we can scape 8th, but also about our prospects for next season given what I've seen so far. I'm not feeling confident Hopkin can assemble at better squad than Kerr appeared to have this season.

Even if you don't have the players to do it, you'll still do it. He wont abandon his style and will persist with it because it's worked in the past. He'll keep doing it until he signs players that make it work. Miller worked well in the system as a DM for us. Not sure what formation he's playing with Ayr but 352 is incoming if it isn't in place already. If you don't have at least 2 fantastic CBs then you're in for some trouble. Prepare for your wingers to become wing backs as well. 

He did this exact thing with us and we fucked it in the playoffs to Stranraer through an absolutely shocking 5-2 first leg loss. If Hopkin gets backed and you go down you should be okay but that would rely on you having the biggest budget in League 1 - our biggest worry then was Brechin/Airdrie/Alloa. We were (I think?) the only full time team in that league. It'll be a different story with Cove/Queen's Park/Partick in that league so he'll need to get the recruitment spot on.

[No_Problemo]

21 minutes ago, rb123! said:

Losing to a league one team 8th in their league having lost just 41 hours previous to East Fife to come down the Ayrshire Coast for a Saturday afternoon canter is an absolute embarrassment, even worse than  Auchinleck.

Superb fucking stuff Ayr

This season can honestly get to f**k as can 90% of the useless tossers in that squad.

We honestly don't deserve to stay in this league and i would not complain if Arbroath finish above us and consign us to 9th.

If the league had 10 full time teams in it we'd be bottom by a long way and probably already cosigned to relegation

Beginning to doubt Hopkin is the right guy too, brilliant idea to play hoofball against a lower division team in a cup, we played it on the deck up at Elgin and destroyed them in the first half, why not do the same today?

BOOOOOOOO

 

There’s been some bad over reactions, but worse than Auchinleck.... c’mon. 
 

If the league had ten full time teams in it, we would still be above Morton at least at the moment.

[diegomarahenry]

2 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

That's Hoppy-ball though. Big long balls and fight for second balls, it's not complicated but it relies on players working really hard to chase and fight for everything

This isn’t standard long balls though, it’s defenders playing quick passes to the forwards, getting us up the park quicker.

it worked against Dundee, as soon as a defender wins the pall, the forwards and full back are on their bikes to give them someone to pass to.

today, Clyde played in numbers so deep, we were pinging passes to players that were surrounded or to wide players that had no one to pass to because Clyde packed the 18 yard box. 
 

We have relied on McCowan or Smith to make space for themselves all season without much creativity beyond that. 

[Thereisalight..]

3 hours ago, Trogdor said:

I don't think it would really matter who the manager is. The players are shitebags. I can't remember a squad with less character and bite than this lot. They look totally disinterested.

Do you think theyd get away with shitebag performances like that if fans were there? I certainly dont 

[ayrunitedfw]

4 minutes ago, Thereisalight.. said:

Do you think theyd get away with shitebag performances like that if fans were there? I certainly dont 

The vast majority of players couldn’t care less about the fans. That’s not exclusive to Ayr btw

Edited April 3, 2021 by ayrunitedfw

[Trogdor]

8 minutes ago, Thereisalight.. said:

Do you think theyd get away with shitebag performances like that if fans were there? I certainly dont 

There is no doubt we have missed fans this season. I know every club has but its definitely impacted us. 

[Trogdor]

Did Voice of Reason win the half time draw? 

Also, great to see another £10k being transferred from the AU500. £55k since the pandemic & £120k since inception. Good job one and all!

 

Edited April 3, 2021 by Trogdor

[itzdrk]

1 hour ago, Trogdor said:

Just watched Hopkin's interview, he looked raging. 5/6 players underperforming - It felt like more than that for me!

I've not watched it yet but I'm interested in this as to me it appeared the players were following his instructions well enough and his instructions were the problem. 

[ayrunitedfw]

6 minutes ago, itzdrk said:

I've not watched it yet but I'm interested in this as to me it appeared the players were following his instructions well enough and his instructions were the problem. 

You really hate Hopkin, don’t you? 

[itzdrk]

Just now, ayrunitedfw said:

You really hate Hopkin, don’t you? 

He's fucking minging at managing football teams. 

[BukyOHare]

6 minutes ago, itzdrk said:

I've not watched it yet but I'm interested in this as to me it appeared the players were following his instructions well enough and his instructions were the problem. 

Morton fans warned us what was coming. 

[D'Jaffo]

He's fucking minging at managing football teams. 

Bit of a broad statement that.

He’s done enough in his career to show that if he’s given time he can do good things.

[munro7]

What bothers me is that even if Hopkin's preferred approach is hump and hope, he surely must be smart enough to realise we don't have the players to play like that?

It's clear Baird et al have been told to keep shelling it but Moffat isn't going to win a ball in the air, and none of the other front players are close enough to win the second ball.

I'm not giving up yet, but I'm worried both about whether we can scape 8th, but also about our prospects for next season given what I've seen so far. I'm not feeling confident Hopkin can assemble at better squad than Kerr appeared to have this season.

This is exactly it for me, said it after the Alloa game. If Moffat’s your front man pinging balls 3 feet over his head is utterly pointless.

Today we were playing a part-time team who were on their 4th game in 8 days. We should have been passing around them and making them chase the ball to tire them out but instead launched aimless punts all game and made it stupidly easy for them.

Yes, McKenzie should have scored twice, but one of those was his own work in forcing an error and the second was one of the few times we actually strung 2 passes together.

[HMIP]

13 minutes ago, itzdrk said:

I've not watched it yet but I'm interested in this as to me it appeared the players were following his instructions well enough and his instructions were the problem. 

It’s pretty clear after the games against Clyde, Alloa and Raith that Hopkin is implementing hoofball.  Absolute madness with the players we have,  Asking a 36 year old Moffat to suddenly become a target man is laughable.  

[honestly united]

2 hours ago, diegomarahenry said:

Today was fucking awful.

Clyde packed the middle of there defence, allowed us to use the wings knowing that we only have 5’6” forwards. Marked McCowan out the game and we were absolutely toothless. 
 

Walsh was dreadful, Miller was pointless playing a team with a 7-2-1 formation, having one of the attacking midfielders on to try and add something to the attack would have been better. Hopkin appears to be blaming the players tonight and he may be right but there was no formation change until he brought Wright on and appeared to play him in midfield. 

playing quick long balls to forwards doesn’t work against a team playing 7 at the back that didn’t move much forward from Their own 18 yard line all game, Yet we kept doing it.

Tactically dreadful and performance wise dreadful as well. The sooner we can clear the decks the better. 
 

All Clyde had to do was find the player being marked by Jack Baird once and then sit in and it worked from early in the first half.

Second to every ball, no urgency or energy, far to many passengers in that team.

For me that was the worst of it today, the majority of the players didnt look interested. We would have been better off starting with 9 and leaving CHalmers and Walsh in the stand 

[vikingTON]

16 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

Bit of a broad statement that.

He’s done enough in his career to show that if he’s given time he can do good things.

 

Has he? He was going absolutely nowhere at Bradford when he left and the same lack of progression was in place when he left us in December. We were playing 5-4-1, shelling the ball to Kalvín Orsi every week and on a clear downward trend. We'd be absolutely no better off than where we are now had he stayed and quite possibly detached in 9th. 

Perhaps Hopkin wants players to pick up more second balls but the discussion of the tactics here is exactly the same as what he implemented every week at Morton and Livingston. Without a credible targetman to hold it up - or trusting decent wide players to provide service like Nicky Cadden did for us last season - then it can get eye-bleedingly brutal once a few losses are on the board.

As the Livingston poster stated earlier, his next likely move will be a '3'-5-2 - a back five - and he'll ditch one of the two forwards if things don't improve as well. 

Edited April 3, 2021 by vikingTON

[BukyOHare]

41 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

He’s done enough in his career to show that if he’s given time he can do good things.

By which time the "good things" may start by trying to get us out of League 1 at the first time of asking. 

I get it that there's more than one way to win football matches and not everybody can be like the 1970 Brazil team. If his style of play wins us the Champions League then great, however back in the real world......

As a minimum we should have 14 players, who are willing to give absolutely everything to win us football matches. Led by a manager that adapts and can make adjustments during games, who's teams are setup to play to our strengths and capitalise / target on the weaknesses of our opponents. 

With players who are fully on board with what's expected of them, that are well drilled and playing as a cohesive unit. He's had a handful of games, I get that. 

When all's said and done, you surely have to play to the strengths of the squad you inherit do you not? Knocking long balls to Moffat and McKenzie is footballing suicide. It makes us predictable and easy to play against. You don't get the best out of a passing midfield comprising McCowan, Walsh, Chalmers and Murdoch who's first thought would always be to link play up with short, crisp passing through midfield. 

Don't then come on black and white TV "raging" post match after playing right into the hands of a lower league team with the team and tactics you've  chosen as our default. 

It should be the fans that are equally "raging" along with a huge dollop of bewilderment at what is actually going on during the week at training, if this is what's getting served up in matches. 

I can't believe McCowan's going to be banging on the chairman's door ready to commit long term to play in this current setup. Nobody could blame him either. Another talent lost. 

Edited April 3, 2021 by BukyOHare