Jump to content

The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread


Recommended Posts

It's really Duffy's to lose surely? Don't want to be left playing catch up come end of season with the inevitable rebuild needed, as well as securing players who's contract is up. Don't hate the thought of Duffy as perma manager, and the players do seem to respond to him, but question marks linger over his recruitment policy. Suppose we'll get a glimpse of that in January.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, D'Jaffo said:


No I meant that I don’t think Duffy will simply leave the club in the summer. I think he’ll be involved in some capacity and if that’s the case then he should be allowed to bring players in over January with next season in mind.

Fair enough - he is an ideal coach/assistant but I have no idea how Duffy would feel about that. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fair enough - he is an ideal coach/assistant but I have no idea how Duffy would feel about that. 

There’s a lot of ifs and buts and no one on here knows for certain what conversations have went on between Duffy and David Smith but my feelings are that he took the job as coach as he had lost all motivation for being a manager but still wanted to stay in the game so took the opportunity to work with someone he was pals with. There would be no spotlight on him and he could keep working on a training ground full time.

When Hopkin was sacked, I still don’t fully think he had any intention of taking the job beyond a 2-3 game period. He probably agreed to it on the basis that we literally had no one else to turn to. I think a big thing was winning his first game against Dunfermline and then his second game against Hamilton. That probably gave him a bit of motivation back and made him keen to take the job until the summer. We never really heard Duffy say he was interested until after the Morton game I don’t think?? I’m still not entirely convinced he’ll want to do it much longer than this season. The guy is 62, which will probably make him one of the oldest working managers in the top 4 divisions and he had a major health scare last season which would surely have had him contemplating how much longer he wants to work in a high pressure environment.

I think he’ll have a conversation with Smith closer to the end of the season about what he wants to do but I’d be surprised if he wanted to stay on as a manager. I think it’s far more likely we go down the route of appointing an Ian Murray, Stevie Farrell or Peter Murphy type and seeing if they have a place for Duffy on the staff. If that’s the case then we’ve got a decent young manager with an experienced coach and if not then he moves on and will likely be a coach elsewhere.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In an ideal world top of my wish list would be Coyle & Stewart returning from India and taking us on, however TATA currently backing them so will be very well paid and even if returning a Premier team or English Championship mob would most likely be their level.

Apart from them, there's nobody I can really think of that would be an attainable stand out candidate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Still think we should look outside the box, someone younger possibly working their trade at development league level somewhere. 

Jim Duffy is simply just not a long term option IMO.

However business or lack of in January may point towards whether he's going to be allowed to re-build or not

Edited by rb123!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

In an ideal world top of my wish list would be Coyle & Stewart returning from India and taking us on, however TATA currently backing them so will be very well paid and even if returning a Premier team or English Championship mob would most likely be their level.

Apart from them, there's nobody I can really think of that would be an attainable stand out candidate.

Exactly that !!! If there was a top guy out there he would surely currently be in talks with Dunfermline, a team with a big fan base , likely much higher budget than us and a new board who don’t seem to be short of a few pounds 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, D'Jaffo said:

That’s why I used the words decent. If Baird can continue on this recent upward trajectory then he’ll be a good player for us. It’s clearly in his capabilities as he was a first pick for St Mirren when they won this league. I think having a bit of stability in a regular partner (Fjortoft) and also having the responsibility of being captain taken away has helped him. Fjortoft, I’d be happy to keep as a 3rd or 4th choice option. He’s brilliant in the air and would be ideal to bring in when trying to see out a win.

Hopkin also got Livi promoted that one time. I'm less inclined to put faith in past performance when recent performance is worse.

I'd be keeping one of Baird and Fjortoft. We really do need a fire sale at the end of the season. A proper clear out is required.

The managerial appointment is critical tbf.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, No_Problemo said:

This exactly. Baird may have potential to be in a top four side - just maybe. 
 

January needs to be the beginning of building towards something more positive, or attendances and interest will continue to dwindle. 
 

I have said it before, but this season had the potential to be a very good one - over a year of not attending, and Killie in the league. IMO we have missed a huge opportunity this year.  We have pretty much fucked it, and it is incredibly frustrating with a series of short term woeful decisions.  However, with beginning a rebuild in January it could be salvageable. Our short term approach with Duffy limits that though. 

Aye, this is what I was attempting to say except for the last bit. I'm not completely sold on Duffman either though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hopkin also got Livi promoted that one time. I'm less inclined to put faith in past performance when recent performance is worse.
I'd be keeping one of Baird and Fjortoft. We really do need a fire sale at the end of the season. A proper clear out is required.
The managerial appointment is critical tbf.

I think everyone and their granny on here knows the truth with Hopkin and his success at Livingston.

The difference is that Baird is capable of being a good defender in this league in a settled back line with a good defender next to him. The quality of Baird and Fjortoft is probably as good as you’ll get in this league unless you manage to attract someone way above this level which there’s no guarantee of happening. Muirhead, Baird, Fjortoft and another good centre half would be fine for this level.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I certainly don't agree with some of the lazy revisionism regarding the last few managers. Kerr? Who's to say? He had a better record than his replacement who left...  and an easy appointment was made. Why people think there is a long-term plan on the football-side of things is beyond me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, wuffster said:

I certainly don't agree with some of the lazy revisionism regarding the last few managers. Kerr? Who's to say? He had a better record than his replacement who left...  and an easy appointment was made. Why people think there is a long-term plan on the football-side of things is beyond me.

Kerr was a dreadful appointment, the fact that David Hopkin was probably even worse doesn’t change that. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kerr had better resources than a lot of Ayr managers in the last 20 years and did badly. I have a lot of respect for Mark Kerr and I was disappointed for him when it didn't work out. 

He probably got an extra month to 6 weeks because of the love for him at Ayr than he should have done. He may have a good career as a coach ahead of him somewhere. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

Kerr had better resources than a lot of Ayr managers in the last 20 years and did badly. I have a lot of respect for Mark Kerr and I was disappointed for him when it didn't work out. 

He probably got an extra month to 6 weeks because of the love for him at Ayr than he should have done. He may have a good career as a coach ahead of him somewhere. 

Aye, I have nothing against Kerr at all and hope he goes on to have a good managerial career. 
 

Its reallly strange because on paper we had a really decent championship team last year but for whatever reason they just did not perform for Kerr or Hopkin. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aye, I have nothing against Kerr at all and hope he goes on to have a good managerial career. 
 
Its reallly strange because on paper we had a really decent championship team last year but for whatever reason they just did not perform for Kerr or Hopkin. 

Without wishing to come across as ITK, I do know someone that has spoken to Kerr since he left and he said something like he put his trust in 3 or 4 players that he was sure wouldn’t let him down and they did.

I think he did have a fairly good idea of what he wanted to do but his recruitment wasn’t great and he never seemed to have a back up plan or know how to change things when they weren’t going his way.

Edit: the annoying thing about the Kerr sacking is, we might’ve actually ended up picking up more points under him that season than we did under Hopkin. Hopkin won a single game and then drew against QOS, ICT, Alloa, Raith and Dunfermline. I reckon we’d have at least matched that under Kerr and then looked to replace him in the summer. Probably wouldn’t have ended up with Hopkin either.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, diegomarahenry said:

Kerr had better resources than a lot of Ayr managers in the last 20 years and did badly. I have a lot of respect for Mark Kerr and I was disappointed for him when it didn't work out. 

He probably got an extra month to 6 weeks because of the love for him at Ayr than he should have done. He may have a good career as a coach ahead of him somewhere. 

Don’t get this at all. We were mid table with hopes of a play-off place until things turned very quickly in his last month or so. The board acted pretty quickly, as soon as it was clear we were in relegation battle he got a small amount of time to try turn it round and that was it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, D'Jaffo said:


Without wishing to come across as ITK, I do know someone that has spoken to Kerr since he left and he said something like he put his trust in 3 or 4 players that he was sure wouldn’t let him down and they did.

I think he did have a fairly good idea of what he wanted to do but his recruitment wasn’t great and he never seemed to have a back up plan or know how to change things when they weren’t going his way.

Edit: the annoying thing about the Kerr sacking is, we might’ve actually ended up picking up more points under him that season than we did under Hopkin. Hopkin won a single game and then drew against QOS, ICT, Alloa, Raith and Dunfermline. I reckon we’d have at least matched that under Kerr and then looked to replace him in the summer. Probably wouldn’t have ended up with Hopkin either.

I could hazard a guess that one of those players is colloquially known on here as “slow”.

If Kerr had brought in another coach to allow himself to play more often he’d probably have been here a bit longer. Alas he stuck to his guns and it backfired.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, UpInTheAyr said:

Walsh, Baird, Chalmers I'm guessing. He made a mistake in waiting for Drinan and once that was decided he was too late to bring anyone decent in.

We got Bruce Anderson in, he has shown he is a good enough top flight striker, he just didn't work out here (attitude).   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...