Fraser Bryden’s return to the starting line-up was praised by Scott Brown as Ayr United put some much-needed distance between themselves and the Championship relegation battle.
After an hour, Bryden’s goal from Anton Dowds’ cross gave the Honest Men a crucial 2-1 victory over fellow struggling team Inverness on Saturday.
Ayr is now four points outside of the relegation play-off slot and four points inside the promotion play-offs as a result of the outcome.
Bryden scored the winning goal, his first in the Championship this year, and Brown expressed his excitement at seeing the 19-year-old strike the back of the net.
Regarding Dowds’ choice to cross the ball for his teammate, Brown remarked, “Most strikers are a bit selfish and want to score the goals, but it seemed Fraser was in a great position.”
“The best place to score goals is between the posts, and Fraser wants to score goals. He scores goals naturally.
“He’s a local boy, he supports Ayr and I’m delighted for him to get his goal because he’s not scored that many in the league this season so he has to add that to his game and he’s doing that.”
George Stander headed in a Harry McHugh cross with only five minutes on the clock, only for the hosts to level in first-half stoppage time when Billy McKay converted what looked like a soft penalty award by referee Iain Snedden.
And after having two weeks to mull over the disappointing loss at Dunfermline in their previous fixture, Brown said he was delighted with the way his players responded – both to that defeat in Fife and to the penalty setback after the break on Saturday.
“It was a disappointing result last weekend,” he said. “But for them to bounce back – the lads stuck at it, they kept working, we went a little bit more direct and we probably could have scored a couple of goals later on as well.
