Date	Saturday, 21 February 2026
Competition	Scottish Championship
Fixture/Score	Ayr United 0:0 Ross County
Venue	Somerset Park
Attendance	1,921
Referee	Chris Graham
Comments	Match Report Report by Stuart Wilson from Ayrshire Live. Ayr United 0 Ross County 0 Ayr and Ross County struggled to create chances as they cancelled each other out. Scott Brown called for more creativity after Ayr United served up a Somerset bore draw. United and rock bottom Ross County slugged out 90 minutes to forget this afternoon. Gaffer Brown insists there was no lack of effort on show from his side - but admits they fell short during a contest where both goalkeepers had little to do. He said: "There was no lack of willingness and desire today but we lacked a creativeness. In fairness to Jude Bonnar when he came on, he was the one player looking to play forward. And I thought Ben Summers did well starting his first game. "But you can see we're struggling with the injuries at the minute. Anton (Dowds) was a huge miss for us as he's such an intelligent player in the final third. Scott McMann's been struggling and managed to play through it, while we also lost Ben Dempsey to illness during the game. "Listen, that's part and parcel of football but you could see the effect on us. "There wasn't enough support offered to George Oakley in the final third today. We only ran when the ball was close to us instead of making those unselfish runs, which we've been really good at these last couple of weeks. "So we need to get back to showing the lads what we need from them because I certainly couldn't fault their work rate and desire. "We dealt with a Premier League side today if I'm honest in terms of their physicality - that's the strongest, most physical team that I've ever seen in this league and we dealt with it really well. "We know we're missing a bit of creativity at the minute. But we still had the two real chances of the game and it's disappointing not to take one." Striker Dowds was a sore miss after feeling his hamstring in training yesterday, while skipper Dempsey was hooked early in the second half after trying to play through his illness. And in truth, Ayr looked similarly off colour all day with a lack of rhythm to their play from the get-go. Summers, who was making his first start for the club since joining from Celtic, was their brightest spark during a first half which saw next to nothing in the way of goalmouth action, bar Kevin Holt heading wide a George Finney cross. At the other end, it took 36 minutes for the first shot on target when former Ayr skipper Ross Docherty drew Max Thompson into a save from long range. The second half was equally tough on the eyes with both sides struggling to create chances, but Ayr did come close to breaking the deadlock when Holt headed a Stuart Bannigan free kick off the bar. And they almost won it in the final minute when sub Nick McAllister had a header cleared off the line by Connor Randall for what would have been a late smash and grab. County boss Stuart Kettlewell said: "It wasn't a great game of football, I'm not going to dress that up. "I felt we always looked like were going to keep a clean sheet while we only had a couple of half chances at the other end and maybe had to show a bit of imagination."
Ross County
Manager	Stuart (Ketts) Kettlewell
Starting 11	30: Trevor Carson, 4: Akil Wright, 5: Levis Pitan 1, 6: Connor Randall, 7: Jay Henderson, 9: Uche Ikpeazu, 23: Ross Docherty 1, 26: Jordan White, 31: Declan Gallagher, 38: Jamie Lindsay, 62: Sean MacKie
Bench	21: Bradley Foster, 3: Len O'Sullivan, 11: Kieran Phillips, 24: Kaedyn Kamara 1, 27: Ryan Duncan, 28: Jamie Williamson, 29: Miller Thomson, 43: Josh Reid, 44: James Scott
Ayr United
Manager	Scott Brown
Starting 11	Max Thompson, Leon King, Scott McMann, Kevin Holt, Ben Dempsey 1, Stuart Bannigan, Liam Dick, George Finney, Ben Summers, George Oakley 1, Mark McKenzie
Bench	Jude Bonnar, Ethan Walker, Nick McAllister, Kenzie Mitchell, Jamie Hislop, Lucas McRoberts, Liam Russell, Shaun Want