Thumper

And also with a continually rotating cast of forwards who struggle to score half a dozen goals a season. This is very much the year zero of any alleged five year plans (i.e. the "before" part).

Not that there weren't a few instances of goalkeepers contriving to throw the ball into their own nets, but it could easily be argued that this could have been worse. The ruinous decision to somehow worsen the fullback situation in the summer along with the no-better-than-mediocre choices available at centra half wouldn't have left Craig Gordon with many clean sheets.

A free agent whose CV has "Celtic" on it. It's not as if he's going to stacking shelves in Aldi if Ayr don't give him a deal. If he stays then it'll be the Brown effect more than anything considering that Ayr demonstrated over the last two seasons that they weren't offering remotely competitive contracts at this level.

Surely Josh Clarke is not going to be especially keen to leave Celtic to sign for a Championship side who more often than not are fighting relegation anyway? I'd be extremely hesitant to ascribe any long-term transfer strategy to Brown based on the handful of players he managed to get in when he started, which to reiterate was after the transfer window had shut.

I'm an eternal pessimist but for Queens Park to escape the playoffs at Ayr's expense they need to hope Ayr lose all three remaining games and either pick up seven points themselves (from an admittedly easier run) or get six and overcome -6 GD. This is off the back of having lost three on the bounce in which they've scored zero and conceded eight. In addition to this, ICT would _also_ need to get at least five points, and Morten at least one. I fully expect Ayr to get pumped by Dundee United and Partick and to be looking for a home win on the last day to be mathematically safe. But if QP don't pull off a really quite unlikely big win at EEP next weekend (let alone ICT needing to also quite likely beat Raith) then it'll be all but settled.

specifically this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QJoxVYTIgc (though he's opted to just dub music on instead of the usual incredibly clipped phone mic audio this time) This was 5-0 going on 45-0.

Five different scorers, two penalties, away fans gurning because they disagreed with some of the officiating in a 5-0 shellacking. Pleasing.

They should have a chat with the guy who uploads full coverage on his fucking phone less than ten minutes after every game is finished. At least his sound never cuts out.

It'll still go to the wire unless Queens Park drop at least four points in the next two games.

You'd have to be extremely brave to charge more to get into Somerset Park due to the increase in the heating bill.

On the upside, that would Ayr would still have at least two trips to Gayfield next season.

McDaid is another example of the Uncle Ian pixie dust. Fine at Ayr (highlight being the Tannadice Slaughter as always). dropped off a cliff afterwards. [edit: on some level I understand that this was now six years ago, but I still can't really accept it]

They are, but it seems to be a quite different setup from the carpet fitters and fishermen that define Scottish part-time football. This is probably correct, but you can't blame the fans for being annoyed with it, and it also has the exact opposite of the intended psychological effect if the team trudge into the changing room at halftime a goal down knowing that they're shooting into the opposition end next. Ironic that the club got rid of an irish winger with no end product considering who subsequently got brought in.

Ludicrous. Falkirk will finish above Ayr next season. There won't be a part-time side to kick around. Next season will be a relegation battle from the start. Any team that spends more than a single season at this level is in utter peril. It wasn't that long ago at all that ICT dropping into League One was preposterous.

Step 1 of this nefarious plan for world domination was moving from Hibs to Ayr United.

It'll be almost entirely psychological, like everything else in football. The club now actually has staff for that sort of thing, so one would hope that they were given the chance to work their magic instead of indulging a squad that has basically been afraid of winning games at its own ground for about 18 months.

The funny thing here is, you would assume that the idea behind the away form being better would be that when Ayr are away, they only have the hardcore support and not the apathetic ones. But then it takes exactly one second to think, where exactly do you think those hardcore fans stand when they're at home games?

Is it still the case that even in the PSB area you're forbidden from actually consuming drink while there is football being played? In which case it is always going to be a strictly inferior experience to smuggling a bottle into the SRE, leather seats or no leather seats.

There is now! Indeed, but if you're chasing a game (and Ayr United are always chasing a game) you want the exciting goals to happen where you can see them. I'm generally of the mind to stand at the halfway line on the NT in the first half and then the SRE in the second. One chief advantage of doing it this way around is that the NT is unfortunately located in Scotland, and thus is usually fucking baltic. That obviously gets worse as the sun goes down.

I think it's fair to say that fans wanting the home team to shoot into the home end in the second half has a bit more behind it than "that's how we've always done it". Especially given that the SRE's shallow terraces mean that actually being able to see the away goal line is mostly wishful thinking. This is maybe less of a consideration if you either a) watch most games these days from the prawn sandwich area or b) have no real concept of grounds that aren't massive all-seaters, which might be what led to the current situation.

That's superstition. If the club is paying for that sort of data analysis then they should cease to do so immediately.

This is wholly true but it is a spectacular example of how Scottish football in particular is utterly corrupt that it's been orders of magnitude more disruptive in games that might theoretically affect the Old Firm than in the whole of the English Premier League.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, Morten winning tonight, and Scott Brown complaining about the fucking wind again.

Genuinely wish Scott Brown would shut the f**k up about the wind. You'd think wind was a new phenomenon or something. Will this be the season that Ayr sign a single fullback after having actually see him play first? Watch this space!

If you're deliberately signing players who are adaptable to multiple positions then either you are Johan Cruyff or you are expecting not to have fit first choices all season. Or of course the secret third choice favoured by Ayr United, that you are not expecting to have fit first choices for every position in the first place.