AYR READY TO ROAR LIKE LIONS
BY GORDON PARKS LAWRENCE SHANKLAND insists Ayr United can do a Livingston and take the Championship by storm.
The Somerset Park striker opted against a switch elsewhere this summer to commit his future to Ian McCall’s newly promoted side.
Now the aim is to use the template of the Lions who went up to the Premiership via the play-offs just a year after winning League One.
Shankland believes Ayr can emulate that feat and said: “We can use Livingston’s achievement as inspiration for the season ahead. I’m not saying we’re going to win the league but to see how well they did showed what can be done.
“If you can get into the play-offs it shows what can happen.
“Getting promoted is great for them. The play-offs is what we have to be aiming for.
“We’ve an ambitious group of boys – we won the league last season so we’re not going into the Championship with the mentality of going up to take part. We don’t want to come straight back down again, which Ayr have done a couple of times in the past.
“We plan to improve on that so the play-offs will be the target.”
The 22-year-old former Aberdeen kid also intends to use the Championship to fulfil his own ambition of reaching the top-flight.
He said: “The Premiership has to be the target for me – I’m ambitious.
“I showed last season that I could play at a higher level than League One. I was happy with my return last term.
“I played in the Championship before and did well but probably not consistently over a full season. So I need to have a good season, score a lot of goals and have good displays.”