BILLY BREMNER MEMORIAL JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN
Date: 31st August 2024
How was the summer transfer deadline window for you? Get the premium loan deal you were after? Now, as an afficionado of the lower leagues, this is a time that does not really hold a lot of fascination for me. I cannot get THAT excited about Raheem Sterling going anywhere least of all to another rich London club. Fair enough Italian fitba does seem to treasure our players more than we do as Scott McTominay and Billy Gilmour are off to follow in the footsteps of so many others – from Law and Souness before them – to trip the Serie A fantastic. La Liga even has a couple of Scots in Las Palmas to rival Italy as the second home of Scottish genius. I wonder if Steve Clarke gets air miles as part of his salary.
Now, down the leagues we have simpler demands and, as an Ayr fan, whilst a wee loan deal for Messi was never a consideration for club owner Dave Smith, there were some other loans in the offing and were delivered across the table for us to build on our great start to the season. Having started so well, you might wonder why we would be looking to bring in new faces after all the old ones seem to be coping so well. But we need depth as the long winter nights are tough down the lower leagues. Even in the Championship.
The leagues are also far more competitive as they do not have two names carved on the top two places every year. We have genuine competition for the championship of any league. There are many clubs throughout the year who can challenge for the top four places that can deliver promotion whilst the issue of relegation is real throughout the season: a bad run of form can end up with you languishing in eighth or ninth place for a month or two as casual fans drift away, the revenue begins to suffer and the club cannot afford to buy in the good pies for half time.
But smaller clubs with tight budgets need to take risks. Those risks can be huge as they look towards buying players, committing wages and trying to get to the end of the season solvent. A bad injury can close down a season quicker than being giant killed in the Scottish Cup fourth round
And so, in the premiership it might be all about the signings made by the big two as they are about to face each other in their first derby of the season, or which emerging Scottish genius kid is to be poached from which other Premier League club as they look tasty and could add to their bench, but below it’s all about who we get to progress.
Notable might be a Motherwell youngster off to Annan Athletic, St. Johnstone academy players off to Cliftonville in Northern Ireland and Berwick Rangers in the Lowland League or the Highland League’s Brora Rangers getting an Aberdeen prospect but in each and every case it is a loan and not a buy. The right to buy might be there somewhere but loan deals have become a huge part of the way we do things now.
They always were.
Jinky Johnstone got sent out on loan. So too, did David Beckham. Johnstone was sent to Blantyre Celtic, whilst Preston North End got a young Golden Balls. Back then it was less of a compliment than it is now. In fact, Beckham was livid at being passed over for the first team at Manchester United! Now it is about game time and getting to learn your trade playing amongst the seasoned pros and for some of us this feels like a much better idea for the development of young players than Colts Teams and B Squads.
But now, we are looking forward to the next phase of the league campaign and whilst there may be a few new faces in amongst the squads, it is a results business and the result of doing any business in the transfer window is about to be put very much to the test.
Oor Donald is an Ayr fan who cares about Ayr and the bigger picture.
Posted in: Latest News
Tags: Ayr United, Championship, Scottish football