The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread

[diegomarahenry]

Steven Kelly hasn't kicked his own arse all season, he surely must be due going out on loan.

I am still ok with Duffy as manager, We knew the limitations of the squad he had been dealt, he has 2 choices, try and outgun teams or try and snuff out any attack. we have tried the latter to no real success and the only times we have picked up wins is when we have been on the front foot. If he can get a couple of decent loan signings in and consolidate and a mid-table position, he deserves to move on (or up) at the end of the season with everyones best wishes. 

I am not sure what the plan is, but Duffy could still be next year in some capacity so he may have a say in recruitment for the next two windows. I would hope that there has been deals done already for January. If there hasn't then either Smith needs a shake or he needs to give Duffy one. 

 

[BukyOHare]

1 hour ago, diegomarahenry said:

Steven Kelly hasn't kicked his own arse all season, he surely must be due going out on loan.

I'm sure the previous chat was that they weren't keen / willing to let him go back to the Championship. 

[Thereisalight..]

Seems the Duffy honeymoon period is well and truly over. Two very tough homes game next. ICT havent looked impressive lately and Partick are a bit hit and miss. Can see us getting 3 points out of the two games, but maybe we'll be suprised and get 6. As for today, should have put money on Zanatta scoring 

[Trogdor]

2 minutes ago, Thereisalight.. said:

Seems the Duffy honeymoon period is well and truly over. Two very tough homes game next. ICT havent looked impressive lately and Partick are a bit hit and miss. Can see us getting 3 points out of the two games, but maybe we'll be suprised and get 6. As for today, should have put money on Zanatta scoring 

Given our points to date have come from: draws with Arbroath (x2) & Morton, wins over Hamilton, Dunfermline & Queen of the South. I'd bite your hand off for 3 points from the next two.

[diegomarahenry]

I’m not sure about the honeymoon period being over. He’s inherited a shite squad, imbalanced, incapable and seemingly injury prone.

he’s had a couple of weeks of released or loan market to bring in better players and didn’t manage which I am not sure can be blamed on him. 
 

He said he didn’t want to be a manager again, Smith said he wanted someone long term. I’m not sure either camp sees this as long term. 
 

his job, amazingly after maybe 3 league games was to keep us up, such was the challenge Hopkin left him. There are currently 3 teams worse than us, Queen of the South, Morton and Dunfermline. Hamilton are becoming as unpredictable as us,  There is a gap that is getting wider above us. 

if we stay out the bottom 3 until January, I think that is an above average performance with this group of players but by then we could be completely detached from 6th never mind 4th

if Duffy wants to reboot his career he needs to strive for the promotion play-offs and that will mean more performances like the second half today and less like the first half 
 

 

 

[Richey Edwards]

1 hour ago, Thereisalight.. said:

Seems the Duffy honeymoon period is well and truly over. Two very tough homes game next. ICT havent looked impressive lately and Partick are a bit hit and miss. Can see us getting 3 points out of the two games, but maybe we'll be suprised and get 6. As for today, should have put money on Zanatta scoring 

Do you still want to dance with Jim Duffy?

[Thereisalight..]

26 minutes ago, Richey Edwards said:

Do you still want to dance with Jim Duffy?

I've never wanted to dance with Jim Duffy...or anyone for that matter

[Richey Edwards]

3 minutes ago, Thereisalight.. said:

I've never wanted to dance with Jim Duffy...or anyone for that matter

Poor show.

[Thereisalight..]

7 minutes ago, Richey Edwards said:

Poor show.

I know have that song stuck in my head. Bassa 

[itzdrk]

8 hours ago, Richey Edwards said:

Do you still want to dance with Jim Duffy?

I do

[Shibuya]

How many times is Zanatta going to score that same goal this season? Great finish but you could see it coming as soon as he got the ball. 

Only going by the highlights but looked very much a game of two halves, just a shame our good half is never quite good enough!

[Trogdor]

1 hour ago, Shibuya said:

How many times is Zanatta going to score that same goal this season? Great finish but you could see it coming as soon as he got the ball. 

This, that is literally his modus operandi. I'm amazed defenders haven't got wise to it and either crunch him or get tight to him. I wish he actually did that for us, rather than playing the role of chicken hearted wage thief. 

[HMIP]

Zanatta was always a good player, but his attitude at Ayr and Partick absolutely stank.  Maybe he has woken up to the fact that Raith might be his last chance to prove that he isn’t a waste of a wage.  

As for Ayr, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion reading some of the comments above that we are basically just giving up and accepting a shocking level of mediocrity that is almost certainly taking us straight to League 1.  I’m probably assuming that Dunfermline will finally come to their senses and boot Grant, so it’s basically between us, Morton and Queens for the bottom 2 places.

Our managerial strategy seems to be to stick with Duffy for no good reason other than we don’t want to give the job to an “out of work jobber” like John Hughes.  The long game seems to be that there will be a manager somewhere around our level who does a bad enough job between now and May that they will be sacked and become available to us as….an out of work jobber.  Personally I’d rather we act now and move for someone like Peter Murphy and try and at least begin the process of moving forward - we’re basically just adrift at the moment.  I still suspect part of the problem is the expense of paying off Hopkin’s bloated coaching team.

[Trogdor]

The issue is to take a long term view means appointing an up and coming manager on a long contract. The problem with that is that its so difficult to make an appointment that takes us forward.

Looking at our last 10 Ayr managers (since Dalziel), 2 have been relatively successful - Brian Reid & Ian McCall. Everyone else has been an abject failure to varying degrees (Money, Shanks, Connor, Watt, Roberts, Kerr, Hopkin). Too early to judge Duffy.

Every managerial appointment is a risk and we're not great at picking good ones as our history shows. I know there isn't much data but Smith is looking every bit as bad as Cameron when it comes to managerial appointments.

FWIW, I am content to stick with Duffman for now. He has turned it around since Hopkin (an exceptionally low bar I fully appreciate). Whilst I recognise he is not the long term solution I expect he'll do enough to keep us up. It's not going to be pretty and it could end up as close as last season. Especially if we don't strengthen in January. I actually think sticking with Duffy is the lower risk option. Sacking Duffy and bringing in someone else is going to be expensive and no guarantee of success. 

It's depressing as f**k but it is what it is. Hopkin has fucked us over big time.

[Guest]

52 minutes ago, HMIP said:

Zanatta was always a good player, but his attitude at Ayr and Partick absolutely stank.  Maybe he has woken up to the fact that Raith might be his last chance to prove that he isn’t a waste of a wage.  

As for Ayr, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion reading some of the comments above that we are basically just giving up and accepting a shocking level of mediocrity that is almost certainly taking us straight to League 1.  I’m probably assuming that Dunfermline will finally come to their senses and boot Grant, so it’s basically between us, Morton and Queens for the bottom 2 places.

Our managerial strategy seems to be to stick with Duffy for no good reason other than we don’t want to give the job to an “out of work jobber” like John Hughes.  The long game seems to be that there will be a manager somewhere around our level who does a bad enough job between now and May that they will be sacked and become available to us as….an out of work jobber.  Personally I’d rather we act now and move for someone like Peter Murphy and try and at least begin the process of moving forward - we’re basically just adrift at the moment.  I still suspect part of the problem is the expense of paying off Hopkin’s bloated coaching team.

We could appoint Jesus Christ as our Manager but unless he could emulate his water into wine trick with Defenders into Midfielders, then I think he'd be as pointless an appointment as anyone else at this stage.

In a nutshell, Duffy is doing as well as can be expected with the hand he's been dealt and any criticism of him is pretty wide of the mark as far as I can see it.

By all means we should be planning for the future, including a major overhaul of the squad, but bringing in someone like Murphy right now would be a massive and pretty unnecessary gamble as far as I can see it, over and above this it's not going to happen as Duffy is here until the end of the season and most of us are quite content with what he's done with this team so far, as we're only too aware of our limitations unfortunately.....

[No_Problemo]

4 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

We could appoint Jesus Christ as our Manager but unless he could emulate his water into wine trick with Defenders into Midfielders, then I think he'd be as pointless an appointment as anyone else at this stage.

In a nutshell, Duffy is doing as well as can be expected with the hand he's been dealt and any criticism of him is pretty wide of the mark as far as I can see it.

By all means we should be planning for the future, including a major overhaul of the squad, but bringing in someone like Murphy right now would be a massive and pretty unnecessary gamble as far as I can see it, over and above this it's not going to happen as Duffy is here until the end of the season and most of us are quite content with what he's done with this team so far, as we're only too aware of our limitations unfortunately.....

The set up of the team in numerous games is not remotely all we can expect of him though. The first half yesterday, second half against Kilmarnock, entire game against Partick were all the set up of an utter shitebag trying to keep the score down. 

[Guest]

16 hours ago, diegomarahenry said:

Steven Kelly hasn't kicked his own arse all season, he surely must be due going out on loan.

I am still ok with Duffy as manager, We knew the limitations of the squad he had been dealt, he has 2 choices, try and outgun teams or try and snuff out any attack. we have tried the latter to no real success and the only times we have picked up wins is when we have been on the front foot. If he can get a couple of decent loan signings in and consolidate and a mid-table position, he deserves to move on (or up) at the end of the season with everyones best wishes. 

I am not sure what the plan is, but Duffy could still be next year in some capacity so he may have a say in recruitment for the next two windows. I would hope that there has been deals done already for January. If there hasn't then either Smith needs a shake or he needs to give Duffy one. 

 

Don't think there's any chance of getting Kelly back but I'd take Robbie Crawford back in a minute given the chance.

He split opinions in his time here but he can hold a ball, pass a ball and drive through the pitch with the ball which is what we're missing right now.

[Jazzar]

9 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

We could appoint Jesus Christ as our Manager but unless he could emulate his water into wine trick with Defenders into Midfielders, then I think he'd be as pointless an appointment as anyone else at this stage.

In a nutshell, Duffy is doing as well as can be expected with the hand he's been dealt and any criticism of him is pretty wide of the mark as far as I can see it.

By all means we should be planning for the future, including a major overhaul of the squad, but bringing in someone like Murphy right now would be a massive and pretty unnecessary gamble as far as I can see it, over and above this it's not going to happen as Duffy is here until the end of the season and most of us are quite content with what he's done with this team so far, as we're only too aware of our limitations unfortunately.....

Yep - he's inherited a squad that is short in key positions and seemingly injury prone (never a good sign and one that seems to appear when players are lacking in confidence).  Getting Hewitt and Muirhead back and keeping them fit will be important between now and January. My one hope is that JD has identified some signing targets and, with the club's help, is working flat out on that. It's getting monotonous saying it but I'd love to see Stephen Kelly signed in January - what a terrible waste for him just now not playing regular football at a decent level - I don't buy the bit about his club not wanting him to play in Championship - plenty of clubs down here can compete with the lower levels in the SPHell.   

[THEHonestman1910]

The thing that's worrying me is that our results have taken a u-turn since Duffy got the job permanent. When Duffy was interim basis we won 3 out of our 4 games and drawn the other. Since then we've won 1 out of 5 and we've been poor for a large majority of those games.

It feels like now we've got a manager in, the players don't seem to be fully determined to impress. One of the biggest factors has been closing down opposition players from the front to the back. 

We all know these players aren't gifted technically but over recent games, there seems to be a lack of energy and closing down.   

[Trogdor]

8 minutes ago, Jazzar said:

My one hope is that JD has identified some signing targets and, with the club's help, is working flat out on that. 

^100% this has to be the club's focus. Particularly a central midfielder that we've known we have been short off since day 1 this season.

I reserve the right to lose the plot if we sign some Grant Gillespie type jobber in January.