RiG

Those prices...

Pre Queens Park - 4

Suspect your best bet is to phone someone in the club shop.

Carson's booking was exceptionally harsh. Armstrong (I think) threw himself to the ground as he did on multiple occasions last night. I thought Sean Welsh turned in one of his best ever performances for us. He was everywhere and when he went forward he was a real creative spark with a nice flicked pass to Mckay (which he should have scored from) as well as hitting the bar and almost bagging another goal when he just missed a low cross from Shaw. obviously he scored a goal but he could easily have had a hat trick and an assist or two. He was magnificent.

Yeah the Ayr setup was pretty impressive. Bar area was busy but service was quick and they had an outdoor spot with astroturf / artificial grass and a good number of picnic style benches with a van that seemed to be serving pizzas and other hot food. Would definitely go back there rather than any pubs in the town especially if you get off at Newton on Ayr.

We lined up with what looked like a 4-2-3-1. Ridgers - Delaney Deas Devine Duffy - Welsh Allardice - Henderson Carson Shaw - Mckay. Henderson started on the left after recently featuring on the right, Carson played as a 10 instead of Shaw who was shifted to the right flank whilst Duffy and Delany were the appointed full backs. Pretty even opening to the game but we gifted Ayr the opener when Delaney failed to clear the ball and it was nabbed off him by O'Connor and he found Akinyemi free i the 6 yard area with a low cross and he easily beat Ridgers from close range. Fortunately we equalised relatively quickly as a Henderson free kick looked to be missed by the Ayr defence and the ball landed close to Welsh in the box and he spun on the spot and swept the ball into the net. The main talking point was the red card for O'Connor which Ayr are claiming was harsh but at the time I thought it was the right call. Initially I thought it was Welsh who challenged O'Connor but I see reports saying it was Duffy. Regardless, both players lunged in committed to the tackle but as O'Connor seemed to have his foot lifted slightly off the ground it meant he overshot the ball slightly and carried through into Duffy's shin which looked pretty bad. The red card was out in a couple of seconds and we had the advantage. Duffy should have put us ahead before the break when he had a free header in the box but he sent it wide of goal and he had another decent effort with a shot that was well saved by the Ayr keeper. Second half was pretty open with both sides threatening. You'd have been hard pressed to tell which side had a man less at times as Ayr looked pretty threatening at various points without forcing Ridgers into many saves. Akinyemi was a handful for Deas and Devine who struggled to deal with him at times. McAlear and Ashford had decent changes that were either wide or over the bar. At times we played some nice football. Most of the threat seemed to come down the right especially after Henderson and Shaw rotated and, with the extra man, Duffy and Delaney started pushing further up the pitch to offer support. Ayr tended not to double up on the wide men so it meant that Henderson or Shaw had to beat one many and they had a chance to get a cross in. Henderson in particular was tormenting the Ayr defence and he had the best chance for us before we scored when he wriggled through a ruck of players at the edge of the box and lashed an effort over the bar. But he goal when Shaw beat his man on the left flank and sent a high ball across goal which Henderson collected at the back post and he managed to steer a shot past the keeper and defenders on the line. Some solid performances from us to win that one today with Duffy, Carson and Henderson probably the pick of the bunch. Duffy was helped out by Mullin going off injured and also the fact that Ayr played a lot of the game a man down. Carson took a bit of time to adapt to the 10 position but he carried the ball forward well and could have had a goal himself had he been more selfish and taking a shot instead of passing to a team mate. Despite their struggles Killie will be a different beast. Today was a good win and the best performance from the last 4 games I've seen but these are pretty low bars and we will need to improve again if we want to try and get through to the SF.

Pre Killie - 2

Probably a question that takes the thread OT but I've always wondered how we didn't attract the same kind of backing during our more successful years and have tended to be a bit of a basket case off the field.

Statement klaxon!

These eye watering losses kicked in as soon as we were relegated (Nareystoepoker has a good tweet summarising the most recent losses). Parachute payments, and later COVID grants, softened the blow but it's clear that these losses were mounting up long before Gardiner arrived. That said, a lot of criticism is definitely justified and I don't disagree with your comments about the alienation of the fanbase and the farce that was the stadium gigs. I also agree that local businesses being burnt will haunt us for many a year to come and I believe that's why Grassa has been brought back to try and repair some of the damage. We've had a lot of hot air and very little substance over the last couple of years at least. As for your final query about what schemes have not failed I cannot think of one that has been a roaring success. The only ones that could maybe be passed off as a win would be small scale bob a jobs around the ground where local businesses maybe spruced up parts of the stadium in return for a free plug on the club website and social media but that is obviously no help to us whatsoever in the grand scheme of things.

We haven't started losing money since Gardiner arrived. It's been an issue before his time as well. Granted some of the schemes to generate additional revenue outside of football, whilst admirable, have largely fallen completely flat and "core" revenue generation methods (i.e. supporters) have been forgotten about or neglected leading to an utterly desperate situation but he's not the only person to blame here (though I think a lot does fall on his shoulders). Hard to see anything other than part time football for us in the next year or so.

That was in the 2021 accounts as well but our future projections were based on commercial parking opportunities and commercial events being realised. How did those concerts go again...?

£835k losses for May 2022, up by £600k from May 2021. Accounts Incredibly alarming...

The chant was the same as the ones opposition fans direct at Dodds.

A lot of the questions could really do with a N/A option. For example, attitude of club staff when purchasing a home ticket is irrelevant to someone like me who buys / renews their season ticket online with no interaction with anyone from the club.

Delany played on the left side of defence with Harper in front. Shaw continued to play as a 10 behind Samuels. Shaw certainly put in a lot of running but struggled to create much of note. Samuels was a nonentity for most of the game not helped by us shellacking long balls in his general direction. Carson was fine defensively but offered less going forward than he did against Hamilton on Tuesday.

Pre Ayr - 1

Dundee should have won that. Laughable offside(s), some good saves from Ridgers and bad misses saved us. We had some reasonable half chances ourselves but nothing compared to the Dees. Still, it was hilarious seeing the wee Ultra gimps celebrating their goal for about 3 minutes before twigging that it had been disallowed. No one really stood out for us I'd say. Samuels was utterly anonymous for the time he was on the pitch and showed what a miss Mckay is when we don't have him available. There wasn't much creative spark in that side apart from maybe Henderson and he faded after the equaliser. Not sure how Shaw stayed on for so long. I feel like Doran coming on and playing as a 10 was a sub we should have made long before he did actually arrive. Overall we still looked disjointed for large parts of the game and bereft of confidence. It's hard not to look at the players and question if they are really playing for the manager any more. It doesn't seem like it to me. The chants towards Dodds cannot have gone unnoticed by the club. Surely it's time to put him out of his misery.

I thought we were actually decent in spells last night. Easily better than the performance at the weekend though that's a pretty low bar. Henderson was seeing a lot of the ball down the right and he linked well with Carson who got much further forward to support him than he did on Saturday. MacKay on the other side was...okay but his touch often let him down as we've seen so often. Most of our early chances came from crosses or set pieces and there were some decent saves from Fulton in the Hamilton goal. Accies main threat going forward seemed to be our defending as we looked a bit of a shambles at the back giving the ball away a lot of the time and struggling with the physicality of the Accies forward line. No real surprise that when the goal did come it arrived via poor defending from ourselves. A short corner was whipped in and O'Reilly rose unchallenged and sent his header into the net possibly via a bounce off the ground which took it away from Ridgers. Similarly, given our joy down the right side when we did take a chance it wasn't a massive shock to see it come from a cross into the box. Henderson (I think) sent a low ball in and Accies only partially cleared the ball to the edge of the box and Allardice strode onto it and coolly passed it into the net. A deserved equaliser. Into the second half and Duffy missed what looked to be an easy chance when he headed wide from a corner and Mckay (Billy) played MacKay (Danny) in but he took a very heavy / awkward touch which looked like it came off his shin before it hit the post. Then followed some real controversy as Shaw gave the ball away and Accies broke down the ICT right which led to a chance which looked destined to hit the net but for a "block" by Harper (I think) on the line. It looked at the time he had blocked the shot with at least one of his arms but inexplicably Colin Steven and the assistant referee gave nothing. I guess they were unsighted but we definitely got away with one there. Not long after that Accies did take the lead when MacKay was chasing back and he clipped the Accies player in the box and sent him tumbling. Clear foul and I think a yellow was fair. I don't think it was a deliberate attempt to take out the player I think it was a very tired attempt at a challenge. Regardless, Smith scored with ease from the spot and we were behind once more. After that we seemed to lose our composure and Mckay went down in the box under a challenge but was booked for a dive. Seemed a bit harsh from where we were but things got even worse when he went down under another challenge in the middle of the pitch and was shown a second yellow presumably for kicking / lashing out or maybe just dissent. Again, I thought it might have been slightly harsh but that's probably with blue and red glasses on. As he walked off Dodds was barracked by a large number of the ICT supporters in attendance. A half hearted thumbs up suggests he knows his time is almost done here.

Pre Dundee - 1

That doesn't reflect well on Ridgers either seeing that back. Looks a little weak trying to defend his near post. Just a shambles all round really.

No of course not and whilst I wouldn't expect the club to come out and have to quash every single daft rumour that kicks off they can head some of these off at the pass by being a bit more open on injuries or any other reason why players may be missing from first team action.

Maybe if the club kept us properly updated on players who were out then some of these rumours wouldn't start.

Jay Henderson, as others have said, was probably one of the few bright sparks in an otherwise poor game. I think he was doubled up as the game went on though so I was a little surprised that Dodds didn't seem to want to have Carson overlap Henderson to take away at least one of the markers to make things a little easier for him. Oh for the days of Shinnie/Tremarco and Raven bursting down the flanks...