Yid_in_Exiile

I don't know what folk were expecting but I thought Mathie did a good job there. I like the fact that people now talk about their own responsibilities and not those of others, he is CEO of the Club not the manager so I would hope he would talk more strategically. Also the objective of the interview was clearly retrospective. take a breathe and review where we are against plan. if he spoke about transfer budgets or targets, even generally, then it would be analysed minutely and every difference between what he said and what Bullen or however say next would be compared and found wanting. Let those who target the transfers and sign them speak about that stuff, not the CEO. Equally clearly we are ahead of plan, even if we don't finish second again this coming season we will be ahead of plan so long as we are competing for top four again. He referencing Brighton as a model and noting the ups and downs on their ten year journey gives you a hint of what is ahead. There are not going to spunk cash on bouquet signings, they are going to build more sustainably and think "outside the box" to try to out perform their budget. If you are thinking outside the box then not every decision is going to come off - that's obvious surely - but their reckoning is that if 60 or 70% of their transfer decisions come off that will be success. Be prepared for us signing folk that not many of us have heard of. We're getting a new stand, new hospitality income streams and a new grass pitch (delighted about the last one). All that should produce a better product on match days. Ultimately it all depends on results of course, as fans (especially new fans) are essentially glory hunters (or a least pride-in-our-town's-team hunters). That is not a criticism, that's just a fact when folk have plenty of other things to do with their time and money. I still think we are heading in the right direction - and if that makes me a "happy clapper" then so be it. Hell, having a credible multi-year plan is a first in the seventeen years I have been following Ayr. Absolutely you can make the observations that we haven't been a pretty watch at times, underperformed in some big games and that will have deterred some potential fans and potential local backers/sponsors from fully committing. They haven't got everything right and some things rest on small margins outside management control (that Cup QF penalty miss, for example) but overall it's been a good season looking back. I agree with pretty much everything he said and hinted at.

Don't have a huge amount of love for the Accies but we were sad to see you go down, as nobody can stand it that it's scummy Airdrie that are coming up. Horrible town, club, fans and ground. Good luck! Hope you can at least find some stability, regroup and come back. Or at the very least don't do a Brechin City (who doesn't love a soup-fuelled away day and a hedge).

The Happy Haggis in Aviemore, the last shop on the Grampian Road south out of town, isn't too bad we thought. We have friends local who think it's the best of the local options.

Could I add a late shout for David Sinclair? We made the foolish decision to sponsor his shirt (we do it every year so get some great blokes and a few duds) on the basis of his reputation at Livi. As sponsors you get two "meet the players" events - I think he didn't show up for the second one but couldn't even pretend he wanted to be there a moment longer than necessary at the first. Came over as a billy big balls. Having to work part-time in a fish processing factory in Iceland, after he briefly signed for a club there, was too good for him. His agent surely shared our dislike of the guy, else how on earth would he have allowed that requirement to remain in Sinclair's contract?

With all such elo or monte carlo modelling, as the remaining data points (i.e. games) reduce then the variance from the average gets less and less likely. When you get down to a bigger points gap than the number of games remaining, then it gets tricky to see you catching somebody. It helps this is such a small League, as you get more "6 pointers" and a bit more possible variance than say in the English leagues. The percentages here look reasonable, at this stage of the season all fans get more and more pessimistic but we can't all be pessimistic and right. Ultimately it's a zero sum game. Ayr is probably going to finish third or fourth, with an outside and rapidly receding chance of second or fifth.

You should apply for that Board job as our new Head of Marketing! Just imagine the posters going up all over South Ayrshire, "Come and watch your, slightly less shit than the rest, local heroes battle through the play-offs so they can be shafted every week in the Premiership" Should sell out Somerset Park, no problem. P.S. Just like we had to go through when we were first getting back to the Championships and getting immediately relegated again, I guess as and when we finally make it back to the Premiership we will have to endure similar years - joining the other yo-yo clubs like Dundee, Dundee Utd, Inverness and Ross County that have had trouble making it stick. To that end, Smith's focus on gradually building the Club's income streams has got to be the correct one versus some mad budget-busting punt on Promotion. Will the Club's fan base be patient with that process for the next five years? Not from what I read on here...

I'd agree with the above. But I cannot recall any game we've won, if fact when we've not lost, when both Dipo and Murdoch are off their game. One of the other off and we have just about coped but not both. Dipo didn't get much service but when he did he didn't use as well as usual, and didn't manage to bring others into the game who had more space - given that two players were on him instantly most of the time. I would give pass marks to McAllister, perhaps to Ashford and Maquire in spells but other than that we looked completely dysfunctional. There was talk on the terraces that Arbroath's second goal was offside from a couple who were directly inline but as nobody has mentioned it here, I guess the TV pictures didn't support that. Decent fish and chips supper at the Bell Rock and a late afternoon visit to Barry Mill (where the miller/guide was incredibly enthusiastic and welcoming) on the drive up were the only highlights.

My rule of thumb, without all these spreadsheets, ELO ratings and Monte Carlo analysis, is that catching a title leader becomes very very tricky once you need to close up more than a point per remaining game. Obviously there are exceptions in past seasons but nine times out of ten that rule works in the run in. Equally obviously Ayr Utd after last night are now officially the title also-rans we in reality always were. We've been figured out big-time but then we never expected to be in with a shout come the last quarter of the season in the first place. I'm just as surprised as Fuctifano that Ayr are such good odds to finish Top 4, as it feels like we are 50/50 at best. Murdoch serving a suspension now for yellow card accumulation, Musonda on international duty and Kirk's injury (on top of Mullen's long term injury) have probably done us in. I would give odds on we finish 5th now TBH.

If VAR extended to the Championship then the SFA would only have to dig even deeper in to what I shall laughingly call the "referee talent pool" to meet the needs of two VAR divisions. Based on the quality of the officials we are now seeing in the Champion - due to just the Premiership's VAR resource needs - that would result in the lower Divisions being referred 100% by completely clueless numpties. Hang on, you may be onto something here.....

I've been to Tynecastle once and it's a happy hunting ground, we slaughtered them 5-0 and there were good times in the away end (other than by a weird contingent of Aberdeen fans who had somehow got tickets). Unfortunately this was the game https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/14486531. I'm not sure the Honest Men would score five against Hearts. At least not away from home... . But it would be a twenty minute bus ride to get to the game and a good pay day for Ayr.

I wouldn't! It's a bugger to get to - we trekked up there last time we played them (League Cup, early in the 2010/11 season) and got beat 3-2. The ground is okay for the tick in your book but it there's nothing particularly appealing about it. We stay over to make a weekend of it in some country house hotel that had a wedding on, and had to squeeze into the front door behind the newly weds who were having pictures taken on the steps. Ten minutes later we left the same way with Ayr hats and scarves on and had to squeeze back past them to some merriment from the assembled guests. Not quite the ambience they were looking for, I suspect ... .

Yeah, but Dundee will certainly drop points too. But for sure, Dundee must be favourites to win the League, have been all season. It's going to be pretty tight though, and I would be surprised if it's decided before the penultimate game of the season, if not the last.

So many heads gone over this result. There really wasn't that much between the sides, Queen's deserved the win over all but the first goal was critical. Fans get too enthusiastic after every win and lose their heads after any defeat. Our defeat wasn't anything to do with the ref, although his performance wasn't great, it was down to a couple of poor decisions and mistakes. The pen was a stonewall pen (although we had no way of knowing that from inside the ground with our view) and, even watching it at the ground, the Ayr shout for a goal didn't look to have completely crossed the line either. Championship players are Championship players because all of them have a mistake in them and cannot produce their best every game all season. We really shouldn't turn on them - the window is closed and we are gong to need them all to contribute at some point of the season and they pretty much all will be asked to do so. Young players not getting pelters for every mistake is only going to help them perform, rather than retreat into their shells. The reality is there are about four or five teams in this League that are all much of a muchness and on any given day beat the others. We are not going to win them all, but if we aren't too unlucky with injuries then we should finish top four. We can play better and will. Queen's will drop points too. Take it on the nose, dust ourselves down and move on. It was a bad day at the office. There are some lessons to be learnt, probably. That's football.

Utter nonsense. You know our budget constraints. If there was gong to to be Wan In there would have to be Wan Out.

Don't f*uckin' nix it!!!