Brian Reid vows to sort out Ayr United

Oct 30 2009 by Mike Wilson

SPINELESS Ayr were slammed for their schoolboy defending after being torn apart in a Somerset Park rout.

Four goals in 11 calamitous first-half minutes ripped the heart from a sorry collection of individuals who were totally outclassed.

It looked like men against boys as Caley's giants walked tall while powerduff Ayr had no reply.

Furious boss Brian Reid promised to address the problems and admitted the fans deserved better.

He admitted: "It was schoolboy defending all over the park. We gifted them a goal at the start and then got one back but then we switched off at the next three. It was an unacceptable and embarrassing defeat but we are far better than that.

"We made Inverness look a decent team although they are very dangerous on the break. That's proved the way they are getting results away from home by sitting in and using their pace. With decent strikers they punished us badly.

"It's got to improve dramatically for us. You work on your shape all week but then they don't go and do it. We have to defend as a team and make it difficult for teams to break us down.

"We never defended properly and got players behind the ball as quickly as we should. That has to be addressed and it will because I am not going to sit and watch that every week.

"Normally we have a good home record and that's only our second defeat in something like 25 games but you wouldn't have known watching that. We looked very inexperienced and lacked ideas in defensive areas."

Andy Aitken for Ryan Borris was the only switch in personnel from the defeat at Partick a week earlier but the script was just the same.

In 11 minutes, silky Spaniard Danni Sanchez danced clear and slid the ball through for Richie Foran to score with ease.

A Ryan Stevenson rocket was deflected over before Ayr were gifted the equaliser two minutes later. Keeper Ryan Esson hacked an attempted clearance off Mark Roberts who knocked the ball into the empty net.

Equality lasted only two minutes when Sanchez again got the freedom of Somerset to set up Adam Rooney for a simple second.

Worse was to follow in 21 minutes when Sanchez again scampered free, sent in a shot which was parried only as far as Dougie Imrie who said thank you very much.

Alarm bells at full pelt in 25 minutes when skipper Chris Aitken fell asleep at a throw-in and David Proctor broke free to send in a shot which Craig Samson could only parry and Foran nodded home.

Reid went for half-time surgery, replacing Chris Aitken and Neil McGowan with Kenny Connolly and David Gormley.

But Caley were still lethal and Sanchez had a free-kick tipped over before Foran sealed his hat-trick in 57 minutes, rising at the back post to nod home a cross from Ross Tokely.

Ryan Borris took the place of Willie Easton for the last half hour but with the damage already done it was merely a case of playing out time.

Caley boss Terry Butcher admitted: "Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would win 5-1. I've never been 4-1 up at half-time before but it's a nice feeling."

STAR MEN: ***Mark Roberts; **Ryan McGowan; *Ryan Borris.

AYR: Samson; Gibson, Campbell, A. Aitken, N. McGowan (Connolly 46; Keenan, Stevenson, R. McGowan, C. Aitken (Gormley 46), Easton (Borris 61; Roberts. Unused subs: Cawley, Grindlay.

INVERNESS: Esson, Tokely, Bulvitis, Munro, Golabek, Proctor, Sanchez (Barrowman 74, Duncan (Cox 58), Foran, Rooney (Hayes 83), Imrie. Unused subs: Stratford, Allison.

Ref: William Collum. Crowd: 1609.