Ayr 5 Airdrie 0: Honest Men humbling Diamonds a wake-up call, says Rhys McCabe

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Rhys McCabe reckons Airdrie's humbling at the hands of Ayr United will prove a wake-up call for his side's Championship promotion hopes this season.The Diamonds hoodoo with the Honest Men continued on Friday night as Scott Brown's side produced a five-star display at Somerset Park to inflict a seventh straight defeat on the Monklands men.After a good 1-0 win over last season's runners-up Raith Rovers, Airdrie travelled south hopeful of picking up back-to-back wins, but within seven minutes it was clear another tough night was on the cards when Jay Henderson found the bottom corner from the edge of the box to open the scoring.In 24 minutes George Oakley turned in Frankie Musonda's cross to have Ayr in command at the break.Just as they did in the first half, Airdrie conceded early on in the second, with Henderson netting four minutes after the re-start before Anton Dowds pounced on an error from goalkeeper Murray Johnson to put the game beyond doubt.When Marco Rus was brought down in the box by Dylan MacDonald in the 77th minute, Airdrie's night only got worse with Dowds slotting home from the penalty spot to complete the rout.And gutted gaffer McCabe said: "I thought we started the game very poorly.

It's always hard to pick up some sort of momentum. I think if you start the game well, it's easy to maintain that standard. We never started the game well and Ayr were the better side from start to finish."When you come to away grounds and you are under pressure, you require bravery and you need to take the ball in tight situations when things aren't going your way."I thought we shirked away from that and there were far too many longer balls - and that is probably credit to how Ayr set up, as well as us not being brave enough