Next Ayr United manager

[ayrmad]

30 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

McCall had Ayr playing football that was good to watch without going long, the games we came unstuck the most were against teams like Inverness and Ross County were they had large players up against Docherty, Forrest and Moffat. 

I don’t think that it is true that we need to be ugly in this league to succeed. Maybe the pitch isn’t up to flowing football but I’d rather watch football on the deck with Moffat and McCowan rather than shelling balls to Wright 

At times we've played some of the best football I've watched from an Ayr team, even after Shankland we had a wee spell of class football playing with no real designated striker.

Don't believe any of the games I'm talking about involved hoofball, don't even think it's fair when folk talk like this is a league of hoofballers. 

[Shibuya]

30 minutes ago, UpInTheAyr said:

Does he have a laptop though?

Fucking hope no!

 

[Jazzar]

Have had some time to get passed the 'unexcited' feeling about this appointment and have now listened to the two interviews on B&W TV.  I've come to the conclusion that it's probably the right appointment given a few things :-

• What we can afford
• Where we are in the league
• Who else was available and had applied

Was immediately taken by the fact that our chairman, with his board, had already earmarked Hopkin as someone they would have approached (presumably if he hadn't applied?). That's interesting because it suggests they knew something about Hopkin that most on here, especially Morton fans, couldn't or wouldn't admit to. The fact that he then interviewed well and impressed our chairman is always a good marker. The doubt is only who else applied and why did they not come across similarly. We'll never know the answer to that one but in the end, does it matter? What matters is Hopkin delivering on the expectations set and agreed with. I'm more than happy to ignore his track record at Morton, mostly because what seems like an ideal job for someone isn't always realised, especially in the fickle minefield of professional football. He may have made mistakes there but as long as he's reflected on them and is determined to do better (and that's something I'm sure he was asked about) then he'll be fine. Pleased too, despite what some on here say, that he's keeping the current staff - who he brings in to support him may well provoke a change but that's for the mid-term.

Welcome and good luck to him - he'll always have my support while he's the Ayr United manager. 

[Hursty]

Folk seem to have totally different memories of McCall's team to mine - we were very entertaining to watch but were often pretty direct- Michael Rose with his long diagonal balls up to Shankland were a massively effective tactic.   I've personally got no problem at all with getting it forward quickly and get men up the park to support - suppose its all about getting balance between direct style and a proper tactic built round it, and just shelling aimless high balls to a totally isolated striker.    

[Lochwood]

One thing is certain with this appointment the Ayr teams will be a lot fitter than they have been, he was my choice so I’m happy and if he gets us near to his Livingston team standard well all be very happy.

[JessieField]

Fitter.... as though running about like headless  chickens makes you a better team.

[D'Jaffo]

Fitter.... as though running about like headless  chickens makes you a better team.

Who says that being a fitter team correlates with “running about like headless chickens”?

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

Dodged a bullet with McIntyre. imo. Better appointment.

[madton]

I ( probably "we" as a Morton support) had such high hopes when he came in-  He said all the right things and you couldn't help but warm to the guy who was also local, ex player etc, it was the perfect fit. I was up for the football not being the most pretty as long as we won more games than we lost but it was his recruitment which infuriated us, both windows.

In the Summer of 2019, he signed Robbie Muir head as " his number 9" but played him pretty much everywhere apart from number 9 including left wing back against you on the 1st day of last season. He signed a shocking goalkeeper  who again played against you that game and we had to go into the loan window late on to find a replacement and we did so in Danny Rogers. He signed far too many wingers, we had 4/5 in the squad and then he brought in Billy King in Sept who hardly kicked a  ball and then brought in Craig McGuffie in Jan who again hardly kicked a ball because we had Nesbitt and Cadden playing well. Meanwhile we had no RB at all in the squad( well we had a good one but he sent him out on loan) and 1 LB but about 10 attacking midfielders. He was forced to play the boy Stephen Welsh from Celtic at RB who didn't look comfortable at all there whilst our CBs were pish and its no surprise that he's doing well for Celtic in his natural position. We had centre mids playing full backs, we had wingers playing full back, we were all over the shop and its no surprise looking at our results, we got some absolute battering's, 5-0 off inverness, 6-0 off DU etc. ( his comment about we will always give our all and be in games until the last minute was a good one) We eve asked John Sutton to come out of retirement it was that bad and to be fair to him, he did a decent job.

The big issue for me is he didn't learn from his mistakes. he did the exact same this year. We don't have a natural right back in the squad. Michael ledger plays there who is a CB. We have 1 LB, Strapp and again we have loads of wingers- Nesbitt, Wallace, Omar, Salkeld, McGuffie etc. We had 12-13 midfielders at the start of the season and only 5 defenders and 1 goalkeeper. He cant use budget as an excuse, he had a squad of 23 players so could easily have trimmed back the ringers and built an 18 man squad with better quality and had some of the youths in reserve.

One thing you cant argue with is the players seem to enjoy playing for him but his overall time as our manager was sheer frustration. His post match comments were infuriating, would always say nothing in the game, 1 mistake cost us then the next week 2 mistakes costs us when he failed to address the fact that we created feck all and defended our own box for 90 mins. The final straw for me was when he played a back 5 with 2 holding midfielders against Arbroath and even Dick Campbell criticised it after the game.

I was convinced he would be our manager for years, he signed a 3 year deal but it just never worked out the way we had hoped and I was glad when he moved on. His assistant Anton showed more attacking intent in his first game as interim manager than Hoppy did in his last 3/4 games combined.

Wish him all the best, he's not  a bad guy and he has the clubs best interests at heart and you never know, you might get Hoppy's Livvy rather than Hoppy's Morton. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Highlandmagar]

Should have pushed the boat out for McCall.

[shizzlemanizzle]

7 minutes ago, Highlandmagyar Tier 3 said:

Should have pushed the boat out for McCall.

In a Jimmy Johnstone Seamill type way?

[North British]

David Hopkin is inboard . Here we go . Let’s back the man and even more so let’s back the opinion of our new chairman and owner .

Lets get something straight there is a huge difference between punting the ball long to a centre forward  and playing an aggressive style with a high press and an ability to feed and run the channels  . Let’s face it Ayr in recent times were nice to watch but we were soft , everyone knew it , and clever managers like Robertson could pick us off at will .

Livingston’s schooling of Premiership Partick Thistle over those two play off ties was a thing of beauty . I’ll take a bit of that please . No doubt we’ll survive with the group we’ve got , maybe one addition.  Next season will be a different prospect entirely. Expect a few changes in the playing staff . 

[Highlandmagar]

5 minutes ago, shizzlemanizzle said:

In a Jimmy Johnstone Seamill type way?

Hahaha.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, madton said:

I ( probably "we" as a Morton support) had such high hopes when he came in-  He said all the right things and you couldn't help but warm to the guy who was also local, ex player etc, it was the perfect fit. I was up for the football not being the most pretty as long as we won more games than we lost but it was his recruitment which infuriated us, both windows.

In the Summer of 2019, he signed Robbie Muir head as " his number 9" but played him pretty much everywhere apart from number 9 including left wing back against you on the 1st day of last season. He signed a shocking goalkeeper  who again played against you that game and we had to go into the loan window late on to find a replacement and we did so in Danny Rogers. He signed far too many wingers, we had 4/5 in the squad and then he brought in Billy King in Sept who hardly kicked a  ball and then brought in Craig McGuffie in Jan who again hardly kicked a ball because we had Nesbitt and Cadden playing well. Meanwhile we had no RB at all in the squad( well we had a good one but he sent him out on loan) and 1 LB but about 10 attacking midfielders. He was forced to play the boy Stephen Welsh from Celtic at RB who didn't look comfortable at all there whilst our CBs were pish and its no surprise that he's doing well for Celtic in his natural position. We had centre mids playing full backs, we had wingers playing full back, we were all over the shop and its no surprise looking at our results, we got some absolute battering's, 5-0 off inverness, 6-0 off DU etc. ( his comment about we will always give our all and be in games until the last minute was a good one) We eve asked John Sutton to come out of retirement it was that bad and to be fair to him, he did a decent job.

The big issue for me is he didn't learn from his mistakes. he did the exact same this year. We don't have a natural right back in the squad. Michael ledger plays there who is a CB. We have 1 LB, Strapp and again we have loads of wingers- Nesbitt, Wallace, Omar, Salkeld, McGuffie etc. We had 12-13 midfielders at the start of the season and only 5 defenders and 1 goalkeeper. He cant use budget as an excuse, he had a squad of 23 players so could easily have trimmed back the ringers and built an 18 man squad with better quality and had some of the youths in reserve.

One thing you cant argue with is the players seem to enjoy playing for him but his overall time as our manager was sheer frustration. His post match comments were infuriating, would always say nothing in the game, 1 mistake cost us then the next week 2 mistakes costs us when he failed to address the fact that we created feck all and defended our own box for 90 mins. The final straw for me was when he played a back 5 with 2 holding midfielders against Arbroath and even Dick Campbell criticised it after the game.

I was convinced he would be our manager for years, he signed a 3 year deal but it just never worked out the way we had hoped and I was glad when he moved on. His assistant Anton showed more attacking intent in his first game as interim manager than Hoppy did in his last 3/4 games combined.

Wish him all the best, he's not  a bad guy and he has the clubs best interests at heart and you never know, you might get Hoppy's Livvy rather than Hoppy's Morton. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh well, he should feel right at home with us as we've a fair few wingers ourselves, strangely enough we lack midfielders and strikers and only have one loan keeper plus an academy boy as back up, so maybe we're all encountering similar problems at our level ??

[D'Jaffo]

Oh well, he should feel right at home with us as we've a fair few wingers ourselves, strangely enough we lack midfielders and strikers and only have one loan keeper plus an academy boy as back up, so maybe we're all encountering similar problems at our level ??

Two loan keepers actually. But aye our squad is pretty unbalanced at the minute now.

[bazka6]

12 hours ago, Jamie_M said:

Morton uploading training photos. Anton conspicuous by his absence.

 

Christ, the pair of them look like they need zimmers, no offence to Andy, looks like Guff forgot to put his teeth in lol

[mugen_power]

2 minutes ago, bazka6 said:

Christ, the pair of them look like they need zimmers, no offence to Andy, looks like Guff forgot to put his teeth in lol

Guth McPherthon