Scottish Communities League Cup: Ayr United pay the penalty as Brian Reid's negative tactics fall flat By adopting those tactics, Reid effectively told his players that they weren't good enough to beat their opponents in open play. Ayr played for a penalty shoot-out from the first whistle and everyone from the sponsors to the BBC, who will broadcast the final live, will be relieved that they failed in their objective for there can be no doubt that they would have attempted similar stifling tactics against Celtic. Kilmarnock manager Kenny Shiels, whose side have beaten Rangers and drawn 3-3 with Celtic this season, claimed afterwards that he would never send his players out to perform in that fashion. "It's better for the final that we are in it," he said. There is no doubt about that. No doubt about that at all. It has to be football that becomes the winner. I'm delighted about that. It's not football what they do, it's not for me. The team that showed courage won the match. Courage is about going on the offensive, which is the hardest part of football. I think Ayr were good enough to win. They have good players. You just have to make them believe that. You have to make them believe they are good and I think they have worked really hard - but they didn't come out. If they had come out they could have won the match. They genuinely could have. I'm a football person and football is about trying to work out ways to score goals. To use good tactics and ingenuity and think about how we can attack. The only goal of this desperately disappointing tie came 11 minutes from the end of extra time when the manager's son, Dean, fired home after Ayr's outstanding performer, goalkeeper Kevin Cuthbert, had parried attempts from Shiels himself and Paul Heffernan. Prior to that, Kilmarnock had poured forward relentlessly but fruitlessly. They rarely managed to get behind a rearguard superbly organised by the veteran, John Robertson, and it looked for lone enough as though Ayr's rope-a-dope tactics might succeed.Fortunately, Shiels passed the dope test. "I didn't have any feelings about it being my boy," said the manager. When the ball hit the net, I was absolutely delighted because I didn't think it was going to be our day. "As the game went on I thought more and more, "This isn't going to be our day." Dean had a few efforts at goal and he deserved it because he has worked hard. Unsurprisingly, Shiels" comments did not sit well with Reid, who defended his negative tactics. "Kenny should keep his opinions to himself, rather than commenting on other teams," he said. No-one would have been saying those things had we made it to the final. That's a wee bit disrespectful and I'm disappointed with that but he made a few silly comments in the build-up, saying that our part-timers were full-time and so on. I don't think that he needs to say that. I get an hour-and-a-half with the players twice a week and we're following youth teams on to pitches and being chased off them by amateur sides. We don't have the luxury of coming into lecture theatres and watching video analysis or working on our shape like other clubs do. He should know better because he managed part-time in Ireland. I was proud of our part-time players today. Unfortunately, we came up a little bit short. Reid, though, was entitled to take pride in an obdurate display from players who followed his instructions to the letter. "Football's a cruel game and that was certainly hard to take," he said. I'm disappointed with that. You saw a few players dropping with cramp, which happens with part-time players. We came to frustrate them and we reduced them to very few chances. We're disappointed for our supporters, who were here in vast numbers. "It's unfortunate we couldn't send them home with a victory but I'm sure they'll be proud of our players" efforts."