Jump to content

The Ultimate Super Ayr Thread


Recommended Posts

29 minutes ago, itzdrk said:

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

This. I was really excited with the Bruce Anderson signing but it just never worked out. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, ayrunitedfw said:

This. I was really excited with the Bruce Anderson signing but it just never worked out. 

Yup - on paper that was a brilliant signing.  With options like him, McCowan, Walsh, Smith and dare I say a motivated Zanatta that Raith seem to have we should have had a far better side.   In fairness- there were quite a few games in the first half of the season where we played quite well but some ridiculous missed chances combined with some absolute meltdowns in defence being punished absolutely ruined us.   Prime example being Morton away 2-3 game.  We absolutely battered them but arguably never fully recovered from the last 8 mins or whatever it was. 

Edited by Hursty
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, ayrunitedfw said:

This. I was really excited with the Bruce Anderson signing but it just never worked out. 

When you think of the players who've came and went in a relatively short period of time, who we as a support largely have been massively divided on, or the management have written off either for being not good enough, past it, having a poor attitude and / or application:

Anderson

Zanatta

Cameron

Walsh

Geggan

Smith

Ndaba

Drinan

Tiffoney

and then on top of that most recently losing the following on frees:

Forrest

Docherty

McCowan

I have no doubt a different type of manager gets more from the likes of Zanatta, Anderson, Cameron, Walsh. That's been proven not long after they've left us. The common denominator in these "failures" is us as a club and also the individuals making the decisions for training, recruitment and matches.

There's a big nucleus in the above list who've came and went in a short space of time who'd be a massive upgrade on what we currently have. If you somehow create a culture that makes a lot of these guys want to stay or apply themselves properly then who knows where we'd be now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, Hursty said:

Yup - on paper that was a brilliant signing.  With options like him, McCowan, Walsh, Smith and dare I say a motivated Zanatta that Raith seem to have we should have had a far better side.   In fairness- there were quite a few games in the first half of the season where we played quite well but some ridiculous missed chances combined with some absolute meltdowns in defence being punished absolutely ruined us.   Prime example being Morton away 2-3 game.  We absolutely battered them but arguably never fully recovered from the last 8 mins or whatever it was. 

Totally agree, with a forward line / attacking midfield of Anderson, McCowan, Walsh, Zanatta, Moffat and Cammy Smith, we should have been seriously looking at a top 4 at the very minimum. Add in Muirhead, Reading, Murdoch, Ndaba, Sinisalo and on paper we SHOULD have had more than enough quality in that squad.

Compare that to what we have now and it's pretty depressing to say the least.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, BukyOHare said:

When you think of the players who've came and went in a relatively short period of time, who we as a support largely have been massively divided on, or the management have written off either for being not good enough, past it, having a poor attitude and / or application:

Anderson

Zanatta

Cameron

Walsh

Geggan

Smith

Ndaba

Drinan

Tiffoney

and then on top of that most recently losing the following on frees:

Forrest

Docherty

McCowan

I have no doubt a different type of manager gets more from the likes of Zanatta, Anderson, Cameron, Walsh. That's been proven not long after they've left us. The common denominator in these "failures" is us as a club and also the individuals making the decisions for training, recruitment and matches.

There's a big nucleus in the above list who've came and went in a short space of time who'd be a massive upgrade on what we currently have. If you somehow create a culture that makes a lot of these guys want to stay or apply themselves properly then who knows where we'd be now.

I don’t think anyone in their right mind wrote off Ndaba or Drinan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, eez-eh said:

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.

We hadn’t been out the play-off places since promotion, we were lucky covid struck as we would have been out of them before the end of the season the way results were going. 

the second season we were disjointed, Smith was a good signing but the rest were pretty poor, performances were poor and a dreadful start by half a dozen teams kept us in the hunt longer. Once Dundee, Dunfermline and Inverness picked up form, we started to and continued to drop like a stone. If it hadn’t been a shortened season we could well have gone straight down. Hopkin takes 40% of the blame for that because he made us worse. Kerr was given a window and resource to try and fix things and brought in Drey Wright. His recruitment had been suspect from day one and it let him down in his final window. I don’t think other managers would have been given that opportunity. 

 None of the problems we had were fixed during the season, we brought in a raft of players that turned out to have attitude problems within weeks of signing. Kerr brought in some of the most forgettable signings since the Two Rabs era. 

Maybe if he’d taken over when we had plateau’d in the second division he’d have been given more time but he took over from McCall, who a lot of people thought he’d talked us as far as he could. Kerr was taking us backwards and there didn’t seem to be the same development of young players as McCall had managed. McCowan and McKenzie were average last year, certainly below the level of the year before. 
 

I wish it had worked out for him, I’m sure he’d be welcome back at the club any time. The guy who followed him will not be able to show his ample face in South Ayrshire for some time. 
 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kerr might have been better with someone with experience like Duffy in his coaching team. Having both a manager and an assistant with no experience of either job wasn't the best idea. Though by all accounts both Kerr and McArdle were tireless in trying to make it come together, but it just didn't work out.

For what it's worth, I don't think last season or this season would have panned out much worse if we had kept him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, BukyOHare said:

Drinan still splits opinion on here. I never said all of them were written off anyway just highlighting the players who've came and went. 

Drinan was excellent for us as was Ndaba in the short time they were here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, diegomarahenry said:

We hadn’t been out the play-off places since promotion, we were lucky covid struck as we would have been out of them before the end of the season the way results were going. 

the second season we were disjointed, Smith was a good signing but the rest were pretty poor, performances were poor and a dreadful start by half a dozen teams kept us in the hunt longer. Once Dundee, Dunfermline and Inverness picked up form, we started to and continued to drop like a stone. If it hadn’t been a shortened season we could well have gone straight down. Hopkin takes 40% of the blame for that because he made us worse. Kerr was given a window and resource to try and fix things and brought in Drey Wright. His recruitment had been suspect from day one and it let him down in his final window. I don’t think other managers would have been given that opportunity. 

 None of the problems we had were fixed during the season, we brought in a raft of players that turned out to have attitude problems within weeks of signing. Kerr brought in some of the most forgettable signings since the Two Rabs era. 

Maybe if he’d taken over when we had plateau’d in the second division he’d have been given more time but he took over from McCall, who a lot of people thought he’d talked us as far as he could. Kerr was taking us backwards and there didn’t seem to be the same development of young players as McCall had managed. McCowan and McKenzie were average last year, certainly below the level of the year before. 
 

I wish it had worked out for him, I’m sure he’d be welcome back at the club any time. The guy who followed him will not be able to show his ample face in South Ayrshire for some time. 
 

 

I honestly don't think ANYONE was annoyed about Bruce Anderson, Cammy Smith, Tom Walsh, Jack Baird or Joe Chalmers when we signed them. 

Zanatta did have his critics, but most agreed he was still a quality addition.

Yes, it certainly all turned bad but as for reputations and raw ability then Kerr's recruitment (on paper) was superb.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, WATTOO said:

I honestly don't think ANYONE was annoyed about Bruce Anderson, Cammy Smith, Tom Walsh, Jack Baird or Joe Chalmers when we signed them. 

Zanatta did have his critics, but most agreed he was still a quality addition.

Yes, it certainly all turned bad but as for reputations and raw ability then Kerr's recruitment (on paper) was superb.

Its all about doing homework on players, We were in to double figures of players that were signed from teams above us either on loan or permanent that were total failures. Half of them left due to "attitude problems". Either Kerr didn't do homework and signed them not knowing they had a bad attitude or their attitude was fine, they just didn't like what was happening at the club day to day. It is far to big a number to put down to coincidence. Either way, it is down to Kerr, McCardle and the club as a whole. There were far to many square pegs in round holes, he signed a team of players that play in different ways to the way he wanted to play. 

Anderson had a big reputation and was frozen out at Aberdeen, if any player should have came to Ayr flying it was him, he could have gone back to Aberdeen after 4 games. Cameron scored more goals for Ayr than passes completed. Zanatta is doing for Raith what he did at Ayr, not very much other than coming off the wing and scoring goals, we needed someone to help full backs and do a bit of hod carrying. He isn't that but is accommodated well in the Raith set-up because they have a better balanced squad and a manager who knows how to manage him. 

Chalmers has shown he is capable at this level after a few games under Duffy, Reading looks like he could be a real asset to the club, Murdoch is playing his best football for 18 months. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, diegomarahenry said:

Its all about doing homework on players, We were in to double figures of players that were signed from teams above us either on loan or permanent that were total failures. Half of them left due to "attitude problems". Either Kerr didn't do homework and signed them not knowing they had a bad attitude or their attitude was fine, they just didn't like what was happening at the club day to day. It is far to big a number to put down to coincidence. Either way, it is down to Kerr, McCardle and the club as a whole. There were far to many square pegs in round holes, he signed a team of players that play in different ways to the way he wanted to play. 

Anderson had a big reputation and was frozen out at Aberdeen, if any player should have came to Ayr flying it was him, he could have gone back to Aberdeen after 4 games. Cameron scored more goals for Ayr than passes completed. Zanatta is doing for Raith what he did at Ayr, not very much other than coming off the wing and scoring goals, we needed someone to help full backs and do a bit of hod carrying. He isn't that but is accommodated well in the Raith set-up because they have a better balanced squad and a manager who knows how to manage him. 

Chalmers has shown he is capable at this level after a few games under Duffy, Reading looks like he could be a real asset to the club, Murdoch is playing his best football for 18 months. 

I don't disagree with you but every player you sign is a gamble and how they fit into a specific setup also a gamble. McCall was very fortunate (for the most part) but the likes of covid was also an unprecedented situation which may have impacted the characters we had and the fact that it was such a large turnover of new players probably didn't help.

I'm sure we'll never know the truth behind it all and i'd also include the REALLY strange case of Brett McGavin in there !!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

McCall signed a lot of guys that he knew personally or had played under people he knew. He was able to find out from them what kind of character they were which seemed to be one of the main things he looked at in his recruitment. If you look at all his signings that did really well for us they were either guys that had played under him or played under another manager that he knew well.

Kerr seemed to focus purely on a players abilities and maybe ignored what kind of characters he was bringing in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, diegomarahenry said:

Magic sponge retro put this up yesterday, looks better quality than the last guy who made them, the away top from that year is in the pipeline also apparently. £40 short sleeve and £45 long sleeve. 

Capture.PNG.65063b7e4fa8d121d1f2b9a33e9de157.PNG

Have to say I received mine that I ordered from that last retroshirts one and it's pretty good quality. No issues. That also looks decent.

Edited by AuAl
Link to comment
Share on other sites

McCall's recruitment across his time as manager was about 60-40 in terms of good-bad. He's just helped by the fact some of the good signings were really good but he still signed plenty players that were terrible for us and guys that went on to perform elsewhere.

He also wasn't the best when it came to the development of players from our own academy instead preferring to develop other teams players. I do think that's one of the key things going forward with some of our academy players attending performance schools and the club being able to show them a better pathway into the 1st team than they'd get heading up to Glasgow. If we can then bring through 1 or 2 each year and sell them on then some of the cash can be used to improve the club off the park unless Smith is happy writing blank cheques.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I personally think that the success of Ayr under McCall came because players were wanting to play for Ayr or McCall or both.

Players in the team like Geggan, Moffat, Moore, Adams, Bell and Docherty all wanted to play football for Ayr United because they knew they would be successful, After nearly being relegated from league 1. The addition of Shankland, who at the time, nobody predicted would be that good, helped the cause. 

They won promotion and got to the play offs. Then McCall left, so did half the team 😐

Credit where it's due, Kerr did okay with what he had with it being his first dip in management. Though there was never any signing that 'Wowed', some looked out of place, couldn't be arsed and unfortunately Kerr was punted. Hopkins recruitment process, like himself, can go take a flying f*ck.

Leaving the team Duffy now has. I don't think you could say that the players are 100% wanting to be at Ayr. Chalmers, Fjortoft, Baird etc all play pretty poorly, possibly only there because they know it's not for forever and they're getting a wage. The players don't come as a unit like they did under McCall. The signing of McGinty, should go down as one of the worst I've seen for Ayr. 

Ayr need a bit of belief back. A few more faces that are striving for success for the team. Ecrepont, Maxwell, McKenzie and McAllister look as if they want to bring success to Ayr, or at least look like they want to, they could be part of a long term solution. Some decent tactics played instead of the long ball rubbish we suffered through with Hopkin and we might have a decent team in development.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Roxanne's man said:

I personally think that the success of Ayr under McCall came because players were wanting to play for Ayr or McCall or both.

Players in the team like Geggan, Moffat, Moore, Adams, Bell and Docherty all wanted to play football for Ayr United because they knew they would be successful, After nearly being relegated from league 1. The addition of Shankland, who at the time, nobody predicted would be that good, helped the cause. 

They won promotion and got to the play offs. Then McCall left, so did half the team 😐

Credit where it's due, Kerr did okay with what he had with it being his first dip in management. Though there was never any signing that 'Wowed', some looked out of place, couldn't be arsed and unfortunately Kerr was punted. Hopkins recruitment process, like himself, can go take a flying f*ck.

Leaving the team Duffy now has. I don't think you could say that the players are 100% wanting to be at Ayr. Chalmers, Fjortoft, Baird etc all play pretty poorly, possibly only there because they know it's not for forever and they're getting a wage. The players don't come as a unit like they did under McCall. The signing of McGinty, should go down as one of the worst I've seen for Ayr. 

Ayr need a bit of belief back. A few more faces that are striving for success for the team. Ecrepont, Maxwell, McKenzie and McAllister look as if they want to bring success to Ayr, or at least look like they want to, they could be part of a long term solution. Some decent tactics played instead of the long ball rubbish we suffered through with Hopkin and we might have a decent team in development.

You make a good point regarding team spirit, I remember watching the likes of Forrest, Moff, Doc, Kelly, Moore, Shankland, Crawford etc all running over hugging each other when any of them scored, and they genuinely looked happy for one another and also looked like they were all pretty pally with each other also.

That said, they were a successful and a winning team so that also makes a huge difference plus the likes of Crawford and Forrest had grown up playing together in the youth team and even Moore, Moff and Doc had been at the club for a few years.

Going back to Kerr, I still maintain that Bell leaving was what really unsettled us and ultimately screwed us, as his leadership qualities and calming influence can't be underestimated and his sudden departure caused so much uncertainty in more ways than just on the pitch and I really don't think we ever really recovered from that.

As for McGinty, every Manager where he's played talks of him being a great guy and a great influence in the dressing room, so while he's far from a good Defender, he's obviously got something about him that maybe none of us are seeing, however it still shouldn't be enough to have him in the side ahead of any of our other CH's currently at the club !!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

Going back to Kerr, I still maintain that Bell leaving was what really unsettled us and ultimately screwed us, as his leadership qualities and calming influence can't be underestimated and his sudden departure caused so much uncertainty in more ways than just on the pitch and I really don't think we ever really recovered from that.

It was January that did him in. Losing Anderson and Big Innes and replacing them with Dre Wright was as horrific a January as you could get. Leaving us with nothing at the top of the pitch. The whole formation of 4-2-3-1 relies on the one holding up the ball and playing the three behind them in. At least with Kerr I understood how he tried to set us up. With Hopkin I had no idea what the formation or style was other than shite.

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...
×
×
  • Create New...