Nelson

Just not interested in a fanboy argument. If Brown can work out how to get the best out of Chalmers then great. But he hasn’t kicked a ball for Dundee Utd in 2 seasons and sank without trace on loan at Tranmere. Perhaps there are issues there which need to be addressed if he is to fulfil his potential.

Don’t talk to me, talk to Scott Brown. He’s the one that hooked Chalmers after an hour in favour of a 19 year old centre forward when we were still were in the game.

If he doesn’t learn to add more defensive work to his game, I think he’ll struggle under Brown. Lack of consistency and poor work rate were the reservations Dundee Utd had about him, and it’s difficult not to recognise those reservations.

Chalmers was poor for me. Didn’t track back, distribution all over the place, generally powder puff. If it was a one off performance against quality opposition, I’d say fine, but it’s where he’s been for weeks now. Getting hooked in favour of Bryden is hopefully a wake up call.

Fanboy alert…. I like Chalmers and he is capable of moments of real quality, but he’s been miles off it for weeks now. Dundee Utd threw in the towel with him, and it’s easy to see why. Hopefully Brown can get a reaction out of him.

My gut feeling at the moment is that Chalmers won’t have the consistency or work rate to satisfy Brown. But he has enough games to prove me wrong. We’ll probably get outbid for him anyway come the summer.

We were beginning to look really disjointed towards the end under Bullen, so good to see us at least look organised. Also good to see us go 2 up front, as Dowds was being left very isolated. A lack of goals is still going to be an issue for us going forward, unless Willoughy turns out to be a lot better than his CV suggests. Not sure where we are with Chalmers - needs to get the finger out pretty quickly if he wants a contract offer from us as I don’t think Brown will stand for that level of effort from him. Seems like he will be quite ruthless (ask Albinson), so Chalmers needs to recognise quick that we’ve departed from Bullen’s enthusiastic dad style of management.

Albinson has been an absolute liability of late, but I don’t think anyone believes Mutch is any better.

We’ve already conceded a penalty, I believe.

Main was absolutely done when he came to Ayr. I only recall him playing a couple of games before moving on. Samson wasn’t great, but putting him below Knudsen is clearly just trolling that clown General Wotsit. Pretty sure he only played a couple of games before him and his bobble hat headed back to the Faroes.

Sad to think that Brexit means we won’t see nearly as many Jeromes or Djaffos coming our way. How the hell David Bangala ever got a work permit is beyond me.

Always puzzled by what happened to Castilla. I think he basically retired from football after leaving Ayr despite only being in his early 20s. The Dalziel effect maybe. Will always remember him running the length of the park to celebrate one of the goals in the relegation decider against Partick in 98.

He had a nightmare in the 7 nil semi final that we don’t talk about. Not sure where Nelson was that day. I’m sure he was a nice guy, but Rovde was a rotten goalkeeper.

Pretty sure Nelson signed in 98 as backup to Castilla. Initially at least…

Definitely Craig Nelson vs Cammy Duncan during my time watching Ayr. Duncan was a little unlucky in that he wrecked his knee just at the point they brought in the backpass rule and he struggled with his kicking. Beyond that, I thought Cuthbert was superb the season we had him and Ross Doohan was different class the first season in particular we had him. Honestly don’t know what’s happened to Doohan, but the potential just seems to be dribbling away. He really needed to find a bit of stability and regular games somewhere. Like Ayr for example.

Without getting back into the Ecrepont is he too short discussion, I’d point out that Kevin Cuthbert was a far better keeper than Samson, but kind of got ignored by premier league clubs because he was, well, too short.

Craig Samson retired in 2018, so I’d say he’s definitely Finnish.

He’s 52!

The sad thing is, Goram would probably be overlooked nowadays. If you don’t have the wing span of an albatross by your 18th birthday, the top clubs lose interest.

Is it just me, or does Ecrepont look really short for a goalkeeper? You know what it’s like nowadays, if a keeper isn’t 6 foot 4 at least, the big teams just aren’t interested.

Yep, we need a new goalkeeper. Not really interested in the 2 great saves he made in the first half - that’s absolutely abject after all the hard work the team put in. The first looked terrible from the SRE, but the 2nd is actually worse.

He passes the ball well, wins the ball well, protects the back 4, recycles possession well and seems to have added some goals to his game. He’s not Zidane, but at our level, there are few better in his position. Which is probably why McCall took him to Partick and now Goodwin to Dundee Utd.

We’ll have to agree to disagree. I sometimes think fans get themselves into a headspace where they have a general opinion of a player that cuts across their actual performances on the park. Call it The Sean McGinty Effect.

Docherty was excellent for Ayr, though he was quite injury prone. Seems to have largely got over those problems now it seems. We’ve never really replaced him since he left, though that’s not surprising given there are few as good in that role at our level. Properly nuts that some Ayr fans didn’t seem to recognise his value.

Don’t recall that at all to be honest. Thought the defence played well and McAllister going off was the trigger for the defence suddenly looking very shaky. McAllister is limited and not the long term answer, but struggling to see how anyone could have major complaints with his performance today.