Moffat Honest in his expectations
AYR UNITED showed there was life after both Ian McCall and Lawrence Shankland when they bolstered their title credentials on Saturday.
Many feared for the Honest Men after high-scoring Shankland departed for Dundee United in the summer, closely followed by McCall’s move to Partick Thistle for a second spell in charge.
On this evidence, however, not only did Mark Kerr’s side ruin McCall’s return to Somerset Park over the weekend, they will take some shifting after remaining just three points behind leaders United at the top of the table.
Even so, experienced striker Michael Moffat believes they will be weakened by what he sees as the inevitable departure of exciting wide players Luke McCowan and Alan Forrest after they destroyed Thistle.
‘Both Alan and Luke will move on to a higher stage,’ predicted Moffat. ‘Alan has been here for a few seasons now and has been a bit stop-start with injuries but this season is the best he’s been.
‘We see what Luke can do every day in training and also in the games, so I would be surprised if teams weren’t looking at him.
‘We’re really clicking up front. That’s the job — scoring and creating goals — and we’re sharing that out among the boys.’
Moffat headed home McCowan’s cross in 17 minutes after Craig Moore had taken a pass from the teenager and fired home the first goal six minutes earlier.
Moore got his second of the afternoon three minutes into the second half with a thunderous strike before Forrest curled one into the corner on 52 minutes.
Joe Cardle scored a consolation for the Jags late on.
‘Craig Moore offers something different,’ added Moffat. ‘You could see the quality in his two goals. The first — in particular — was a great finish.
‘We lost a lot of good players in the summer — like Shankland — but we’ve replaced them and boys are stepping up.
‘We might not have someone who scores 30 to 35 goals (a season) but as long as we’re all chipping in, that’s just as good.’
Much of the pre-match focus was on McCall but Moffat insists the players weren’t bothered.
‘Not much has changed since the new manager (Kerr) was appointed,’ he said. ‘He had been doing some of the training anyway.
‘It’s a good appointment and, hopefully, we can do it for him.
‘I was expecting it to be a closer match but when we play like we did in the first half, we can do that to most teams in the league.’
Thistle were awful and need to find results quickly before McCall shakes up the squad in January.
Goalkeeper Scott Fox believes everyone needs to step up, with the Jags two points adrift at the bottom and five behind eighthplaced Morton.
‘You need characters to win football matches, especially when the pressure is on,’ he said. ‘It was a poor day all round.
‘We have produced some good performances, like at Inverness and Dundee.
‘But we didn’t perform anywhere on the pitch. We were lucky we were only beaten by four.
‘The inconsistency is what’s killing us. We need to sort it out.
‘If we don’t match other people’s work rate and enthusiasm, then we’re going to struggle.
‘We’re in a relegation dogfight and we need to dig in. Every player has to stand up.’