RED card sinner Daniel Harvie will be frozen out of the Ayr United team after manager Ian McCall said he had "let them down" as they crashed to their first defeat of the season in spectacular style on Saturday.

The defender was given his second yellow card of the season as the Honest Men slumped to a 5-0 defeat away to Queen of the South.

Asked about the dismissal of the former Aberdeen ace, the manager said: " I was angry about that - it was inexcusable. I don't think it was a penalty but to throw the ball at somebody after you have been booked is going to get you a yellow card, he let his team-mates down and will pay for it in the worst possible way. He won't end up being brought straight back into the tea. Liam Smith ended up playing really well when he came on. Daniel might have a long wait to get back into the team and that is how we will suffer.

The boss admitted it has been a testing week after he confirmed he had turned down the chance to manage Falkirk and stay on at Somerset Park.

He added: "It has been a difficult week for all sorts of reasons. This year we have eight to 10 good performances in our games but on Saturday we didn't have any. Ross Doohan has been utterly fantastic for us all season. But the first goal was key and he should have saved it but he knew and put his hands up. We didn't have any good individual performances.

"Stephen Dobbie scored the goals but the boy Dykes caused us serious problems all day long. It was as really bad at the office.

"I said before the game everything was on such a high with seven wins, two draws and at the top of the league. Football has an awful habit of bringing you back to earth. It certainly did that."

However the boss was not too hard on his players.

He said: "At the end of the game I reminded them of how outstanding a start we had. The important thing is how we react in the next game at home to Falkirk a week on Saturday.

"We will work really hard between now and then. Hopefully at Somerset we will come out with all guns blazing and will play like I all know we can.

"Now will just train hard and we must aim to go on a bit of a run by taking seven points from the next nine and see where it takes us."