The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, RedEd said:

Every league in a pyramid needs to play at more or less the same time of year, so it would affect the top tier as well as the rest.

Summer football is a misleading term since the season starts February/March and ends October/November. Added to that, the weather in Scotland is unpredictable at the best of times. I'm not convinced it's the panacea some folk think it is.

This view wasn't based on wanting to stand in my shirt sleeves with the sun beating down on the the NT, it was more based on the fact that the virus is at it's worst during the winter months and that's when the most draconian restrictions are being placed on the population.

We may not like to face these sort of facts but things have changed whether we like it or not and as such we need to be proactive rather than reactive which is why we've failed on so many counts already.

[HMIP]

27 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

Hopefully the virus situation is no longer an issue come the start of the season, however if it follows the previous 2 years and a normal respiratory virus season, then December to March could end up a write off again (rightly or wrongly).

If this is indeed the case, then the lower leagues must surely start to look at changing the fixture calendar and playing Summer football when fans are going to be most likely able to attend.

This would obviously prove problematic for the top leagues due to International commitments but there's certainly no reason why teams at our level and below shouldn't be looking at it.

How would you handle promotion and relegation if the premier league and the championship are out of sync?  Besides, the Scottish winter Is long and miserable enough without no football to keep you going.  

i think we’re a long way from the scenario you describe anyway.  The vaccines are breaking the link between hospitalisation and death and moving us towards covid being another manageable public health issue such as flu.  On the other hand, If the vaccines becomes ineffective, it will be an issue all year round, not just the winter months.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, HMIP said:

How would you handle promotion and relegation if the premier league and the championship are out of sync?  Besides, the Scottish winter Is long and miserable enough without no football to keep you going.  

i think we’re a long way from the scenario you describe anyway.  The vaccines are breaking the link between hospitalisation and death and moving us towards covid being another manageable public health issue such as flu.  On the other hand, If the vaccines becomes ineffective, it will be an issue all year round, not just the winter months.

The point is we need to have some contingency planning as opposed to the "it will all be ok" argument.

[Thumper]

12 hours ago, Iain said:

If we set expectations at this level then the season we actually get may be tolerable.

Take away the wildly improbable point at Inverness and Hopkin collected four points and no wins. Sound familiar?

13 hours ago, Hursty said:

I don't even hate him, I just wish he had still been here when the takeover and talk of bigger budgets etc happened.

Well, where are the bigger budgets now? A bunch of free defenders from the only full-time club in the country who finished lower than Ayr in the league. The rumoured signing of a goalkeeper from the wilderness of the English seventh tier.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Thumper

[AyrExile]

14 minutes ago, Thumper said:

Take away the wildly improbable point at Inverness and Hopkin collected four points and no wins. Sound familiar?

Well, where are the bigger budgets now? A bunch of free defenders from the only full-time club in the country who finished lower than Ayr in the league. The rumoured signing of a goalkeeper from the wilderness of the English seventh tier.

It's a fair question about the budget. Last season we seemed to have a decent one and were able to hand out two year deals early on. This season we have a new owner , working off no recent gate cash and we will recieve much lower league prize money. Also a lot of building work happening so the amount available for players could have changed quite a bit

Edited June 3, 2021 by AyrExile

[Trogdor]

30 minutes ago, Thumper said:

Take away the wildly improbable point at Inverness and Hopkin collected four points and no wins. Sound familiar?

That's not quite right. Did we not beat Dundee away?

I think his league record is P9; W1; D5; L3 - 8 points. Still not great tbf.

[Hawk89]

19 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

That's not quite right. Did we not beat Dundee away?

I think his league record is P9; W1; D5; L3 - 8 points. Still not great tbf.

Pretty sure White did the Morton and Raith games, Hopkin then handled Hearts as his first game and the win away to Dundee was the next? 
What concerned me the most was we appeared to have a bit of a bounce under White but nothing really after Hopkin came in. Can't really put my finger on why, it may have been the players had already chucked it past the point of no return by then, but it doesn't explain why White got them playing at a semi competent level.  

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Hawk89 said:

Pretty sure White did the Morton and Raith games, Hopkin then handled Hearts as his first game and the win away to Dundee was the next? 
What concerned me the most was we appeared to have a bit of a bounce under White but nothing really after Hopkin came in. Can't really put my finger on why, it may have been the players had already chucked it past the point of no return by then, but it doesn't explain why White got them playing at a semi competent level.  

I'm not attempting to defend Kerr or Hopkin here however I think most of the problem last year was everyone was rubbish and even hearts relative to their squad quality and budget were rubbish. This could have been due to covid restrictions, absence of fans, general malaise among the players, who knows ? but what i do know is that despite us being utterly horrific we were only ever a couple of back to back wins from being in a promotion play off spot and I suppose the same could be said for Morton.

Apart from the abject performance and subsequent humping at Gayfield, we were most certainly competitive in every match and I honestly can't remember us being outplayed / outclassed by anyone, in fact most of the matches were similar stale, boring, slow tempo, lack of action affairs and even the matches I watched on Friday nights involving the other clubs were pretty much identical grim affairs.

Who knows, had we had a couple of more "fighters" / guys that actually gave a fcuk, we might well have found ourselves much higher up that league, in fact I'm 100% sure we would have.

Let's just hope that next season is an improvement !!

[AUFC 1910]

34 minutes ago, Trogdor said:

That's not quite right. Did we not beat Dundee away?

I think his league record is P9; W1; D5; L3 - 8 points. Still not great tbf.

5 draws

5 goals away from another 10 points

Would have put us in 4th position

That’s one way to look at it!

Problem all season was not enough goals

 

[Richey Edwards]

14 minutes ago, Hawk89 said:

Pretty sure White did the Morton and Raith games, Hopkin then handled Hearts as his first game and the win away to Dundee was the next? 
What concerned me the most was we appeared to have a bit of a bounce under White but nothing really after Hopkin came in. Can't really put my finger on why, it may have been the players had already chucked it past the point of no return by then, but it doesn't explain why White got them playing at a semi competent level.  

White is magic, that's why.

[North Terrace Gazza]

59 minutes ago, AyrExile said:

It's a fair question about the budget. Last season we seemed to have a decent one and were able to hand out two year deals early on. This season we have a new owner , working off no recent gate cash and we will recieve much lower league prize money. Also a lot of building work happening so the amount available for players could have changed quite a bit

Didn’t we get a £1 million grant last season?

[Thumper]

5 minutes ago, AUFC 1910 said:

Problem all season was not enough goals

Are you sure the problem wasn't that the defense didn't have Sean McGinty in it? Because that was the first order of business.

[Hawk89]

5 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

I'm not attempting to defend Kerr or Hopkin here however I think most of the problem last year was everyone was rubbish and even hearts relative to their squad quality and budget were rubbish. This could have been due to covid restrictions, absence of fans, general malaise among the players, who knows ? but what i do know is that despite us being utterly horrific we were only ever a couple of back to back wins from being in a promotion play off spot and I suppose the same could be said for Morton.

Apart from the abject performance and subsequent humping at Gayfield, we were most certainly competitive in every match and I honestly can't remember us being outplayed / outclassed by anyone, in fact most of the matches were similar stale, boring, slow tempo, lack of action affairs and even the matches I watched on Friday nights involving the other clubs were pretty much identical grim affairs.

Who knows, had we had a couple of more "fighters" / guys that actually gave a fcuk, we might well have found ourselves much higher up that league, in fact I'm 100% sure we would have.

Let's just hope that next season is an improvement !!

I'm looking at it with a blank slate this season, in alot of ways I'm glad a number have moved on from this perspective. If there is low moral amongst the group, starting from scratch and moving people on is probably a good way to get the heads back up. Have to agree that there weren't many games last season that felt anything more than medium tempo, even the champions league final on Saturday felt pretty meh at best.  As someone who is in the anti-Hopkin camp, I'm also looking at it pragmatically that he needs time to be able to stick the two fingers up to us and show why he's the man for the job. I was the same with Mark Roberts when he was given a second chance to build a squad. 

The Livingston cup game, Dundee humping at home and QotS away are the ones I felt we looked miles off it. However when we hammered Dundee at home in the 3-0 I felt we looked a good footballing side.....funny old game, maybe the one game where the Kerrball masterplan had a chance to shine. The rest there probably wasn't much in it, especially after our collapse at Morton and Kerr switching to an ultra cautious approach that strangled our attack. It felt like our attacking threat never really recovered after that point. 

[Trogdor]

13 minutes ago, North Terrace Gazza said:

Didn’t we get a £1 million grant last season?

£500k I believe.

Ask Falkirk and Partick fans they'll know for sure as they were going aff their heids at only getting £150k when part time teams were getting more. 

[Trogdor]

22 minutes ago, AUFC 1910 said:

5 draws

5 goals away from another 10 points

Would have put us in 4th position

That’s one way to look at it!

Problem all season was not enough goals

I spent a lot of last season saying we were only X points off fourth. There is no doubt a lack of goals done us in, in the end.

Here is our GD split by thirds of the season:

First 9 games: 13 GF 12 GA +1GD

Mid 9 games: 9 GF 9GA 0GD

Last 9 games: 9 GF 16 GA -7GD

[Superhursty7]

Goals were a major problem but for me it was not being able to defend a lead if we actually took one that hurt us the most, I lost count of how many times we scored and the opposition went straight up the park and equalised, I think a lot of that stemmed from the Morton collapse if Hopkin can improve that I think we will be fine to stay up but like everyone I want us back pushing for top 4

[eez-eh]

1 hour ago, Thumper said:

Take away the wildly improbable point at Inverness and Hopkin collected four points and no wins. Sound familiar?

I’m not defending his record but you can’t just start disregarding points to suit your agenda.

@Trogdor is right - it was 1 win and 8 points. Replicating that over the season would have seen us ninth by a distance.

[ayrunitedfw]

4 hours ago, North Terrace Gazza said:

I see on the official Arbroath website they are saying that they anticipate limited numbers in their stadium next season with season ticket holders getting priority, I would expect the same at all grounds. Arbroath have also confirmed that live streaming will continue and this is covered in the cost of the season ticket.

It’s really difficult to get excited about next season and in particular the Ayrshire derbies when it’s likely to be diluted limited number shite with potentially no away fans. 

[Finlay21]

3 minutes ago, ayrunitedfw said:

It’s really difficult to get excited about next season and in particular the Ayrshire derbies when it’s likely to be diluted limited number shite with potentially no away fans. 

Almost certain to have no away fans at Somerset until late Aug at very earliest  going by current projected Covid levels 

[BukyOHare]

15 minutes ago, Finlay21 said:

Almost certain to have no away fans at Somerset until late Aug at very earliest  going by current projected Covid levels 

I love it when football fans berate not getting some normality back to our lives and in the next breath are organising trips to London for the Euros without a ticket. 

I overheard this very conversation this morning and can't believe it isn't happening in workplaces up and down the country. 

I don't want this to descend into a covid debate but it's just so annoying that there'll highly likely be an increase in cases if people just flaunt the advice which will just spook the government into keeping things cautious. 

Edited June 3, 2021 by BukyOHare