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The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread


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7 hours ago, CoolLesterSmooth said:

I’m half dreading Saturday. I can see a gubbing on the cards. 
 

Despite us challenging at the top there’s never been a game where I thought “aye, we look the part”. We’ve scraped wins and had a decent bit of luck. And also, this is a weak Championship. I fear this is where the season looks a big shoogly. 
 

i get that last year we were pish. And since I’ve been going to Somerset we’ve never finished higher than 3rd. But christ my expectations have been raised from the on paper results haha. 
 

Saturday is crucial. Hope upon hope we do the business. 

Ayr United 3 - 1 Dundee

Ayr United 5-0 Queens Park

Cove Rangers 0 - 5 Ayr United

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Wouldn't have McCall back. It can't be denied he did a terrific job for us and put us in a place we hadn't been for years but the club has moved on and I'm not sure his skill set would fit the club anymore. 

Would happily take Scally though as Bullen needs help to get the best out of a talented squad. It might stop the interminable hoofball.

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8 hours ago, Hammer Jag said:

He is.

I’m sure that’ll be great consolation for him whilst he’s left stumbling about outside the Job Centre having already necked a half bottle and swinging his Partick trackies above his head. 

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1 hour ago, yorkshirepud said:

Wouldn't have McCall back. It can't be denied he did a terrific job for us and put us in a place we hadn't been for years but the club has moved on and I'm not sure his skill set would fit the club anymore. 

Would happily take Scally though as Bullen needs help to get the best out of a talented squad. It might stop the interminable hoofball.

I don’t think bringing Neil Scally onboard is the key to turning us into prime Barcelona. He was at the club at a time when we were playing some pretty dire stuff. 
 

There is far too much emphasis being placed on the supposed “hoofball” we are playing as if it didn’t work for us in the first half of the season. 

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36 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

I don’t think bringing Neil Scally onboard is the key to turning us into prime Barcelona. He was at the club at a time when we were playing some pretty dire stuff. 
 

There is far too much emphasis being placed on the supposed “hoofball” we are playing as if it didn’t work for us in the first half of the season. 

Yeah - it only gets mentioned when the results aren’t as forthcoming. 

The only game I can think that we didn’t do it for the majority of the game was the recent game against Cove. Can’t even remember where the stat came from earlier in the season, but we have been one of the most direct teams in Scotland all season. Largely, it has worked very well - interestingly if you look at teams that overachieve in terms of budget in this country it does seem to be those that play quite directly but then play off that. 

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1 hour ago, yorkshirepud said:

Wouldn't have McCall back. It can't be denied he did a terrific job for us and put us in a place we hadn't been for years but the club has moved on and I'm not sure his skill set would fit the club anymore. 

Would happily take Scally though as Bullen needs help to get the best out of a talented squad. It might stop the interminable hoofball.

No denying the good outweighs the bad but the best spells for McCall under Ayr were when he had either John Henry or Sandy Stewart alongside him. 

Could be wrong but never got the impression Scally was the brains behind the operation. He seemed well liked but his job appeared to be more a link between the management and players, rather than some tactical genius.

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Hoofball:

There is a big difference between Route One and what Ayr United are currently playing.

Greenock Morton are certainly closer to Route One than we are, IMO we try to get it up to Dipo 'quickly'.

For the majority of this season our possession stats are usually less than the opposition. 

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Aye I always got the impression Scally was so present and well liked because he was the one that took all of the training and pre match work. McCall was often quite distant from day to day training etc from what I remember.

The style of football was more down to the players we had at that time. Worth remembering we did have games during that period were it wasn't working and we resorted to trying direct stuff every now and then. Not sure Scally is what's needed.

Edited by AuAl
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4 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

Yeah - it only gets mentioned when the results aren’t as forthcoming. 

The only game I can think that we didn’t do it for the majority of the game was the recent game against Cove. Can’t even remember where the stat came from earlier in the season, but we have been one of the most direct teams in Scotland all season. Largely, it has worked very well - interestingly if you look at teams that overachieve in terms of budget in this country it does seem to be those that play quite directly but then play off that. 

And the only reason we never did it against Cove was because their defence parted like the Red Sea and made it incredibly easy for us to create chances. 
 

The way we are playing isn’t an issue exclusive to Ayr. Generally speaking, players at this level aren’t good enough to play the ball on the deck at all times. If teams press then players will go long. If teams sit deep and compact like Elgin did then we’ll go long. It’s not like we’re being set up to punt the ball but when we run out of ideas (which will happen quickly because players at this level aren’t the most imaginative) then we’ll start to direct in the hope that it’ll pay off. 
 

It’s why it annoys me greatly when fans demand that we pass the ball about to try and win games. It’s clear that we have players capable of passing the ball. We did endlessly in the first half against Elgin but as Bullen said we were just doing it for no reason. We didn’t have anyone capable of trying something to create a chance. Whether that means signing another attacking player or reverting back to 4-4-2 where the direct football worked I’m not really sure. 

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Shelling it quickly to Dipo when he's marked by 2 men isn't very clever. The players should be smart enough to realise that.

What is our plan B when Dipo is tightly marked? There should be more space available for everyone else.

The alternative shouldn't be passing it backwards and sideways which seemed to be what the players resorted to for long spells on Saturday.

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Just now, Trogdor said:

Shelling it quickly to Dipo when he's marked by 2 men isn't very clever. The players should be smart enough to realise that.

What is our plan B when Dipo is tightly marked? There should be more space available for everyone else.

The alternative shouldn't be passing it backwards and sideways which seemed to be what the players resorted to for long spells on Saturday.

Well yeah that’s precisely my point. We’re talking about a level of football here where players aren’t good enough to know exactly what to do and teams rarely have a back up plan when it isn’t working. Players need to be able to find the space to play. Paul Smith was the only player who attempted to make runs or move to receive a pass but it’s not enough. 
 

At this stage of the season everyone has got each other figured out. Teams know that Dipo is our main threat and also give us less space in wider areas. Unless we can come up with an alternate way of playing then the only choice we have it to slog it out for the next few months and see where it takes us. Games will likely be tighter and hopefully we get more draws than defeats. Other teams will likely be in the same boat though. 

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3 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

What is our plan B when Dipo is tightly marked? There should be more space available for everyone else.

IMO We should Play Dipo off Bryden.  Dipo is more than capable of playing a bit wider and deeper, ( Ref. his weighted pass to Mullen at Cove ) and it appears that Bryden enjoys a wee tussle with a Centre-Half.

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48 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

Yeah - it only gets mentioned when the results aren’t as forthcoming. 

The only game I can think that we didn’t do it for the majority of the game was the recent game against Cove. Can’t even remember where the stat came from earlier in the season, but we have been one of the most direct teams in Scotland all season. Largely, it has worked very well - interestingly if you look at teams that overachieve in terms of budget in this country it does seem to be those that play quite directly but then play off that. 

Indeed, the only objective is to score more goals than your opposition by whatever means necessary, possession stats mean absolutely nothing and in fact can be extremely frustrating for a fan when it's getting passed sideways backwards and forwards in your defensive third / middle of the park, as it achieves absolutely nothing.

I also think it's a case of the old "rose tinted" where McCall is concerned as everyone always talks about our wonderful passing moves however they seem to conveniently forget the all the utterly shocking performances in the winter months when we could barely even scrape a draw and found scoring goals virtually impossible.

Yes, we had some great times but we also had some shockers.....

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49 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:

And the only reason we never did it against Cove was because their defence parted like the Red Sea and made it incredibly easy for us to create chances. 
 

The way we are playing isn’t an issue exclusive to Ayr. Generally speaking, players at this level aren’t good enough to play the ball on the deck at all times. If teams press then players will go long. If teams sit deep and compact like Elgin did then we’ll go long. It’s not like we’re being set up to punt the ball but when we run out of ideas (which will happen quickly because players at this level aren’t the most imaginative) then we’ll start to direct in the hope that it’ll pay off. 
 

It’s why it annoys me greatly when fans demand that we pass the ball about to try and win games. It’s clear that we have players capable of passing the ball. We did endlessly in the first half against Elgin but as Bullen said we were just doing it for no reason. We didn’t have anyone capable of trying something to create a chance. Whether that means signing another attacking player or reverting back to 4-4-2 where the direct football worked I’m not really sure. 

It depends - I think with the right style of player it is possible at this level, though my caveat is that these type of teams seem to struggle in the winter months. It would be good if we could do both!

I’m possibly guilty of wanting the 4-3-3 to allow us to play a more possession based style, but maybe we just don’t have the style of players to do that. As soon as we start to pass the ball around it is just utterly aimless. 

McCall’s Shankland side was very direct, though possibly not as much as our current one. I think we all get misty eyed at the style of football the team produced at the start of the following year but it had incredible footballers in Forrest, McCowan, Moffat, and Kelly linking together. You then add in Mark Kerr who could single handedly control a game - we just can’t expect the current side (for all the qualities they do have) to produce that style of football. 

The annoying thing is, that if we do revert back to 4-4-2 that McAlear is a bit of a wasted signing, and we would have been far better off with the likes of Shields or Henderson. 

26 minutes ago, D.Armour Appreciation Society said:

IMO We should Play Dipo off Bryden.  Dipo is more than capable of playing a bit wider and deeper, ( Ref. his weighted pass to Mullen at Cove ) and it appears that Bryden enjoys a wee tussle with a Centre-Half.

Bryden lost most of his aerial challenges when he came on, though he did win one important one and was obviously decent out with that. I think it needs to be McKenzie if we are playing directly as he is much more physically ready. 

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28 minutes ago, No_Problemo said:

It depends - I think with the right style of player it is possible at this level, though my caveat is that these type of teams seem to struggle in the winter months. It would be good if we could do both!

I’m possibly guilty of wanting the 4-3-3 to allow us to play a more possession based style, but maybe we just don’t have the style of players to do that. As soon as we start to pass the ball around it is just utterly aimless. 

McCall’s Shankland side was very direct, though possibly not as much as our current one. I think we all get misty eyed at the style of football the team produced at the start of the following year but it had incredible footballers in Forrest, McCowan, Moffat, and Kelly linking together. You then add in Mark Kerr who could single handedly control a game - we just can’t expect the current side (for all the qualities they do have) to produce that style of football. 

The annoying thing is, that if we do revert back to 4-4-2 that McAlear is a bit of a wasted signing, and we would have been far better off with the likes of Shields or Henderson. 

Bryden lost most of his aerial challenges when he came on, though he did win one important one and was obviously decent out with that. I think it needs to be McKenzie if we are playing directly as he is much more physically ready. 

Styles aren't always the issue, it's more about players taking responsibility and trying to create something themselves, nobody did that on Saturday until Daire entered the fray.

Ultimately if you play with a high tempo, strike the ball at goal, whip balls into the box and get your players moving around and Midfielders breaking forward from deep, then you WILL create chances and score goals, irrespective of your regarded style of play.

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2 hours ago, D'Jaffo said:

There is far too much emphasis being placed on the supposed “hoofball” we are playing as if it didn’t work for us in the first half of the season. 

I too deride the fools and simpletons who say that having a single solitary tactic becomes problematic when the opposition figure out how to deal with it.

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