Livingston secured second place in the Scottish Championship on Friday night by handing Ayr United their worst loss under Scott Brown’s leadership.
The manager of the Honest Men promised “that will never happen again” after seeing his weak squad, which was devoid of scorer Curtis Main and captain Ben Dempsey, manage just one goal during the 5-0 thumping in West Lothian.
Ayr will have to settle for third place and the playoffs once more this season after suffering their worst loss since a 5-0 home loss to Partick Thistle in May 2023.
“[It was a] Terrible performance from start to finish,” Brown said on Ayr United TV.
“[We] didn’t earn anything from the game; it didn’t really matter that we had our first shot on goal in the 92nd minute.
“I don’t want that team, and it’s not my team. The game lacked genuine tackles and enthusiasm.
“We’ve come away from that and that will never happen again.”
After his team was “outran, outfought, and outsmarted” by David Martindale’s Lions, the manager acknowledged that he would have to start over.
After just six minutes, Stephen Kelly gave the home team the lead. Robbie Muirhead then scored a penalty, and Kelly scored his second goal soon before halftime.
As Livi made Falkirk wait at least another week for their title celebration, Cristian Montano and Reece McAlear further accentuated the scoreline.
George Stanger, a defender for Ayr, was harsh in his assessment of the game.
“Embarrassed is probably my main emotion,” he remarked. Many of the boys, I believe, will be alike.
“It’s clearly really sad; we’ve failed everyone. As a group, we established the criteria, and that wasn’t even close to what we expected.
“To be honest, I’m embarrassed by the performance and the outcome.
“All of the objectives were really subpar. It’s the entire game, though, not just that. We weren’t close to it, and we didn’t stick together when we should have.
“Fair play to Livi, they’ll be delighted with their performance but that’s on us, we need to look at ourselves and we need to be so much better moving forward.”
Stanger apologised to the fans and stated that his teammates would “try to make it right” this weekend when they play Queen’s Park in the campaign’s penultimate match.
“The supporters who came and those who didn’t deserve so much better, and the football team deserves so much better than what we gave,” he continued.
“In order to correct that, we already want the next game to start straight away.
“The support has been amazing this season and they deserve so much better than that.”
