The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[D'Jaffo]

4 minutes ago, Thumper said:

I have no reason to doubt Smith's motives or sincerity, but having significant chunks of the club's facilities actually be privately owned by the chairman is a double-edged sword. Random example: the Hub being booked out for a private function from 6 on a home matchday. Totally within his rights, but you wouldn't see the club doing it.

Losing three midfielders (two to injury and one to ???) in the space of two weeks certainly can't be legislated for, but unless the team rapidly gels (and starts finding the back of the net) there can be no argument that the summer window was a success. Someone needs to own that. It's not some completely unaccountable cosmic chance.

I don’t think it is a success at all but there’s things in football that can’t be planned for and needs to be reacted to. The club reacted to the injuries in quick fashion and got bodies in but I don’t think they would’ve been flush with proven quality hence why they’ve ended up with three relative unknowns. You obviously can’t blame it on Bullen and maybe sacking him is harsh but we’re seeing the same stuff that we saw last season and before which indicates it probably won’t change. You have to wonder if having Dempsey and Murdoch fit would’ve changed the results against Dundee United and Arbroath?

[wuffster]

I went to Arbroath yesterday as I hadn't seem them play since Stirling away. It wasn't very good. Chalmers looked miles off it but will presumably improve, McGeady missed a couple of sitters and then was anonymous. Hard to draw any conclusion about Rose because he's so isolated most of the time. Syla and Young - I don't know - busywork but always going sideways or backwards. Plodding. The defence is guff. Plus I'll be amazed if Arbroath finish in the top half this season.

Lack of the NT has kept me away from Somerset this season and I will forego Tuesday night in favour of my backgammon club. I wanted Bullen away at the start of the year and still do. We'll be stuck with others at the club for much longer I fear.

[diegomarahenry]

7 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

 You have to wonder if having Dempsey and Murdoch fit would’ve changed the results against Dundee United and Arbroath?

I don't think so, we have been pretty wide open in midfield for the last 18 months and good defending has saved us. We appear to have chucked that since the Inverness game last season. We just don't have the right blend of ball winners and ball players. 

We are desperately short of a focus up front, Someone who can bully defenders, or hold the ball up, or be fast and get in behind. Murdoch and Dempsey wouldn't have solved that. Pendlebury had pinged a couple before he left, maybe that would have helped. 

[No_Problemo]

11 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

I don’t think it is a success at all but there’s things in football that can’t be planned for and needs to be reacted to. The club reacted to the injuries in quick fashion and got bodies in but I don’t think they would’ve been flush with proven quality hence why they’ve ended up with three relative unknowns. You obviously can’t blame it on Bullen and maybe sacking him is harsh but we’re seeing the same stuff that we saw last season and before which indicates it probably won’t change. You have to wonder if having Dempsey and Murdoch fit would’ve changed the results against Dundee United and Arbroath?

Them being fit probably helps, but doesn’t let us control games either - one of the main recruitment failures as the addition of Pendlebury didn’t fix that blatant issue. You then add the full back problems to that and that’s three huge issues they haven’t been addressed. 

I’ll continue to give Rose the benefit of the doubt at the moment, as ultimately he did get us a goal at the weekend but if that one doesn’t work out then…

[D'Jaffo]

5 minutes ago, wuffster said:

I went to Arbroath yesterday as I hadn't seem them play since Stirling away. It wasn't very good. Chalmers looked miles off it but will presumably improve, McGeady missed a couple of sitters and then was anonymous. Hard to draw any conclusion about Rose because he's so isolated most of the time. Syla and Young - I don't know - busywork but always going sideways or backwards. Plodding. The defence is guff. Plus I'll be amazed if Arbroath finish in the top half this season.

Lack of the NT has kept me away from Somerset this season and I will forego Tuesday night in favour of my backgammon club. I wanted Bullen away at the start of the year and still do. We'll be stuck with others at the club for much longer I fear.

I don’t know why people think we’d be better off without the “others” at the club. Presumably you mean Smith and/or Mathie. 

[AyrAtlanta]

20 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

You have to wonder if having Dempsey and Murdoch fit would’ve changed the results against Dundee United and Arbroath?

We were played off the park by what is turning out to actually be quite a shite Morton team, despite how it looked that day, with those 2 in. I don’t think it changes anything.

[ayrunitedfw]

13 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

I don’t know why people think we’d be better off without the “others” at the club. Presumably you mean Smith and/or Mathie. 

I'm not saying Mathie should be sacked however he's not this big hero than you seem intent on painting him as. 

[wuffster]

11 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

I don’t know why people think we’d be better off without the “others” at the club. Presumably you mean Smith and/or Mathie. 

We're stuck with Smith for good or ill. No one would be mentioning any other off-field staff if we still had a traditional manager setup - Bullen would be getting all the flak. Since the waters seem to be muddied re: who has responsibility for what with recruitment (and it's not likely to be clarified anytime soon) I'm not surprised that questions are being asked of other employees. FWIW I don't think Mathie will be going anywhere soon as he's the owner's main man.

[D'Jaffo]

9 minutes ago, ayrunitedfw said:

I'm not saying Mathie should be sacked however he's not this big hero than you seem intent on painting him as. 

I think he’s probably the best off field appointment we’ve made in years. 

[Caledonian]

2 hours ago, No_Problemo said:

Partick have a better striker and more goal scorers on their bench than we do in our starting side. You could probably put the qualities of all our strikers together; and they wouldn’t get anywhere near Adeloye. 
 

https://x.com/jamiemc1876/status/1698071910645461371?s=46&t=ePwn7NhiZI4UIBD4epSkrA

By my reckoning he has now scored twice in sixteen months.

[Trogdor]

2 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

I think he’s probably the best off field appointment we’ve made in years. 

You do realise we were running on a shoe string for the guts of two decades?

You aren't comparing like with like at all, the bar is atrociously low. 

[super_carson]

An enlarged backroom staff is all fine and well if everyone is on the same page, but it really doesn't feel like they all are.  Bullen has mentioned several times about what type of player he wants but it doesn't appear to have happened, so from that point of view I do have some sympathy for him. 

However, he's ultimately responsible for the tactics/style of play on the pitch and it's been pretty poor for a good while now.  Surely even he must understand that he's not got long to try and turn it around?  

[UpInTheAyr]

24 minutes ago, AyrAtlanta said:

We were played off the park by what is turning out to actually be quite a shite Morton team, despite how it looked that day, with those 2 in. I don’t think it changes anything.

Depressing thought, completely plausible and a damning indictment of Bullen and the current squad.

[No_Problemo]

7 minutes ago, Caledonian said:

By my reckoning he has now scored twice in sixteen months.

And your point?

[Trogdor]

Just now, No_Problemo said:

And your point?

Given the number of appearances, I took it to be an envious comment on his conversion rate compared to Bryden and McKenzie tbh. Rather than a slight. 

[diegomarahenry]

Smiths day to day running resulted in Hopkin turning us in to a poor Morton tribute act and then Jim Duffy continuing his legacy. Mathie has at least elevated us above that. 

Having heard Mathie talk a few times, he comes across like a lot of middle managers, a lot of talk but not a lot of substance, the type of person who attends every course available but avoids any actual work. Some of the biggest failures at the club in recent months have been met with a verbal equivalent of a shrug and a vow to do better, without explaining what has been put in place. The season tickets are an example of that. No preparation done and when it looked like it was going wrong, nothing was put in place. The whole process will have put people off next year. 

Much like Bullen, you need to see growth in individuals to see if they are developing in their roles. Only Smith and the rest of the board can fairly judge that. Fans complaining at 3 defeats out of 4 can voice off about things and they should expect that. If Bullen fails, then Mathie has failed. It is up to the two of them to fix it. Either they sit down and make changes to effect results or Mathie pulls the trigger. I think we are a long way off the second step assuming they haven't taken the first one yet. 

[ayrunitedfw]

12 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

I think he’s probably the best off field appointment we’ve made in years. 

Based on what?

[GuyIncognito]

1 minute ago, ayrunitedfw said:

Based on what?

Smith was making an arse of the day to day running of the club as, to be honest, he didn't really have a clue about that side of the job. Bringing Mathie in has allowed him to focus on developing the club off the field, which is what he is obviously best at. The hub and the new stand are clear examples of this.

[Trogdor]

2 minutes ago, ayrunitedfw said:

Based on what?

Comparing him to the octogenarian Lewis Grant presumably. Who was hamstrung by budgetary constraints as Lachlan ran us with one eye on minimising his contribution.

[D'Jaffo]

2 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

You do realise we were running on a shoe string for the guts of two decades?

You aren't comparing like with like at all, the bar is atrociously low. 

I’m not comparing anything. I’m just stating that I think he’s proven to be a very good appointment for the club. 
 

People are angry and looking for someone to blame but the issue that they have isn’t something that can be levelled at Bullen’s door as it’s understood that he isn’t overseeing our recruitment so naturally people are looking at Mathie and Glendinning. The latter is basically just a scout as he isn’t entering into talks with players or deciding who we sign. He’s just providing information on a wide range of potential targets that the club have to sieve through. 
 

This summer is the first time that questions could be asked of him but I still think he’s being treated pretty harshly by people. The decision to pick Ehui out of, I presume, a number of potential candidates for right back looks a bit bizarre as they aren’t playing him. Forget what happened at Morton but the fact that 45 minutes can be used by the club to decide he’s not what they want is a bit worrying. This signings and lack of more signings at full back are the biggest issues as Bullen was vocal in saying he wanted upgrades and every fan with a working brain could see this has been the issue since we had Liam Smith and Danny Harvie. It’s quite criminal that we haven’t had a consistently competent right back since 2019. The fact that we had shift focus to more midfielders mitigated it slightly however given full backs was a priority you’d have expected one or two to have been the first in the door in May or June. 
 

Tldr: You can ask questions of people without demanding their head on a spike. Bullen has had plenty of questions being asked and the answers have been pretty varied. Hopefully Mathie can answer his a bit better.