Livi v Hibs

First of our three home games this month, and a toughie, hopefully Nisbet isn't back playing yet.

Reckon we only need another 9pts to secure a top 6 spot, and we've 7 games to do it, the sooner we achieve that goal the better though, so we could do with taking something here and setting ourselves up for our next two easier home games.

Anyone know how many games Omeonga got suspended for, think 2 yellows is prob only the one game, but not sure, hopefully he's back for this game, could do with his midfield disruption game, turning over possession. Hopefully Bruce, Kelly, Bradley, Penrice and Nouble find their goal scoring boots again too, and some of them get a few goals for us.

Mon the Lions, lets take all 3pts.

Not feeling it… somehow they have started playing well even though they were a rabble earlier in the season. I’d take a draw, especially since, on current form, we can’t score and can’t keep a clean sheet.

Hibs seem to have finally got their act together at a time when we are going through a sticky spell. I hope we get our mojo back for this one. The referee is a Chris Graham who is new to me. Fingers crossed he recognises a diver when he sees one because Hibs have a few.
Take a draw.

Got to be honest here,I'm not particularly looking forward to this.Three dissapointing weekends on the trot and I envisage another here.Unless of course the Lions as Orco says find their collective mojo and get back to our former form. For me 7 points from our next 3 home games could potentially put us back in the mix for that top 6 place.Easier said than done of course. Crucial part of the season for us imo.Tommorow should at least have a decent atmosphere with Hibs bringing a sizeable support through from Leith. Hopefully we have a go and would be terrific to take 3 points though im erring towards Getting at least a point here.Anyways,Man City first against ma Newcastle then the Lions.Would be uplifting to head into the wee bar after the game with something to celebrate as opposed to the last few weeks.Get it done Livi and maybe the Toon as well.Cheers.🤍.

Troy wrote:Got to be honest here,I'm not particularly looking forward to this.Three dissapointing weekends on the trot and I envisage another here.Unless of course the Lions as Orco says find their collective mojo and get back to our former form. For me 7 points from our next 3 home games could potentially put us back in the mix for that top 6 place.Easier said than done of course. Crucial part of the season for us imo.Tommorow should at least have a decent atmosphere with Hibs bringing a sizeable support through from Leith. Hopefully we have a go and would be terrific to take 3 points though im erring towards Getting at least a point here.Anyways,Man City first against ma Newcastle  then the Lions.Would be uplifting to head into the wee bar after the game with something to celebrate as opposed to the last few weeks.Get it done Livi and maybe the Toon as well.Cheers.🤍.

Potentially.

There's a glass half full and then there's Troy's glass half full.

Cheerz L/F.Could be like that come 4 45 Sat.Maybes no..

Hope we finish at 4.45, but with VAR it's more likely to be 5pm. All the officials (except for Newlands the 4th official) and VAR refs are newbies though, have no idea how they'll do. It's refreshing going into a game not dreading the officials, knowing how badly they've done in previous games.

Just watched the Accies v Arbroath game, with Craig Napier as the ref, interesting he gave a yellow for a studs up sliding tackle, yet sent Holt off against Hibs for the same thing, even though in Holt's case Nisbet actually jumped in ahead of him after he'd got the ball.

Liviforever wrote:Just watched the Accies v Arbroath game, with Craig Napier as the ref, interesting he gave a yellow for a studs up sliding tackle, yet sent Holt off against Hibs for the same thing, even though in Holt's case Nisbet actually jumped in ahead of him after he'd got the ball.

Didn't think Little should have received a red card either. The Hamilton guy was desperate for any kind of contact so he could go down. As well as that Arbroath had a guy covering so not a definite goal scoring opportunity.
Poor.

And it was looking so good after 10 minutes…

Excellent control, space creation and strike by Nouble to open the scoring; for a spell we looked comfortable at 1-0… then the wheels fell off for the rest of the first half.

Second half we kept getting exposed on the break (which led to the equaliser so we learned nothing) and resulted in Fitz getting sent off. I thought Shamal made a huge error for the third but I now believe it was a deflection off Omeonga that caused him to be wrong footed… but again caught on the break. The 4th looked like Nisbet was offside when the initial ball was played, then it hit Boyes (reminiscent of the goal Celtic had disallowed against us) and VAR shows its inconsistency… unless of course Nisbet timed his run perfectly.

Overall I thought Hibs probably edged it - and I find that very painful to say - and right now I think we have as much chance of getting a top 6 place as a snowball has in hell.

Started well and looked comfortable, Devlin getting caught out trying to play Youan offside, and making an arse of it for their equaliser. 2nd goal was a sclaff that went in off the post, then the red card kills it completely, looked like the Hibs player kicks Fitzwater and tripped.

With 10 men and a goal down we were chasing the game and continually getting caught with Hibs hitting us on the break, 3rd goal was a deflection off Omeonga and by the time the 4th came we were down to 9 men with all our subs used when Omeonga had to go off injured.

Nothing went for us again with ref decisions, Fitz off but Hibs No26 getting away with a yellow, fecker should've had a few yellows long before that one, and the one he did get should've been a red.

Positives is we finally scored a goal, and de Lucas got a game, after Obileye came on and went back off injured, he looks far more composed on the ball than any of our CB's.

It's a right downer losing against Aberdeen and Hibs, but we're still in the running for top 6 with our game in hand against Utd on Wed, lose, or even don't win, and i think we'll have blown it. Massive, massive game against the bottom team in the league at home, we simply must win it.

Dont know what to make of that tbh.Absolutly gutted that for the 4th week my weekend has been scunnered. Firstly Newcastle then the Lions.FFS could it get any worse.Yeh,scoring the first goal lifted the spirits slightly,then a comedy of errors followed. With everything happening in front of us just couldn't fathom how we capitulated so badly.Hibs deserved their win no doubt,though we didn't half make it easy for them.You guys have covered the main points so kudos for that.Couldnt wait for the ridiculous ref to blow that final whistle tbh.Too many bad office days for my liking lead me to surmise our top 6 chances have gone,but what do I know‍�.Sad news this morning about the passing of Bill Hunter.He was Livingston Fc and without him none of us would be posting today.We owe him a massive debt of gratitude RIP Bill.GBNF..

I have no real complaints about the sending off, Fitz tries to get back but could see he wasn’t going to prevent a shot without doing something, if it got into the box he would have risked giving away a pen and get a red, so (despite DM saying it was unintentional) I think he clipped his heel outside the box in the hope that they would deem that Boyes getting back might mitigate against it being a scoring chance and he’d get away with a yellow. So it was a calculated risk that went against him. My biggest gripe of the decisions is the 4th goal looking like it was offside but being awarded by VAR.

I watched the game replayed on Alba (masochistic tendencies ) The sending off interested me greatly. I paused it frame by frame a dozen times and for the life of me did not see any contact. The Hibs player actually took a step before he went down. As far as I'm concerned he should have been booked for diving.
Another incident that I took interest in was a clear handball by Hibs in the second half. It was Devlin and the Hibs player in the box. The Hibs player fell and clearly used his hand to redirect the ball while he was down. Ref and linesman blind.
The 4th goal the player who scored was offside in the first phase before Nisbet got the ball so was in an advantageous position when Shamal saved. But what do I know.
I'm sick of referees giving us nothing. Little decisions can have a big impact on the game.

In saying all that we weren't at our best for most of the game. Hibs have quality players and they were on form today. To beat these teams you need a wee bit of good fortune as well as effort and if it could go wrong today it did.

We've got a team coming to us on Wednesday who haven't won a game for God knows how long but how many times have we had teams in that position come to us and get their first win. Add to that the fact that we are now badly hit by injury and suspension and I don't hold much hope of us getting anything. The Shamal injury is a huge blow. I've seen Jack Hamilton in reserve games he is no very good. It's all going sour.

Here's the thing though - Hibs haven't beat us when we have had 11 players on the pitch so far this season. Nah doesn't cheer me either.

I haven’t watched any highlights but I’m convinced I saw Fitz clip the lad’s heel from my seat in C2. It looked as I described it in my last post but I am ready to accept that it could have been the lad running across Fitz although I see no reason for him to do that as he was goal side, I also see no reason for him to dive unless he was in the box, which he clearly wasn’t.

Not sure I can bring myself to even a slight amount of masochism by watching highlights… but I might. Can’t change anything by that other than possibly what I believe happened but I’d rather be right than wrong about such things.

Edit: just watched on YouTube; different angle from the camera than I had gives a bit more perspective on what happens, Hibs lad does run across Fitz to ensure he gets in front of him and in doing so is clipped, so I now agree wit Martindale’s assessment that Fitz didn’t deliberately trip him. They show the 4th goal but not a replay of it. Still looks to me like Nisbet is offside and he attempts the shot which Shamal saves well the rebound falls to 99 who buries it… would have to see the analysis to see if Nisbet is off or not when the ball is played.

As per usual Sportscene don’t bother with the offside (on the replay it looks like 2 players offside; Nisbet & the scorer) and although DeLucas deliberately tries to play the ball he doesn’t deliberately play it back towards his goalie.

They do sympathise with Fitz as he hasn’t deliberately tripped the lad.

And no forensic analysis of the foul on Ayo… our players have been sent off for far less that didn’t result in an injury to the opponent.

Aye it was a much of a muchness with both players running alongside one another, the attacker seems to get the decision though, i doubt if Fitzwater had tripped and fell we'd have got the foul.

We did put ourselves in that situation right enough, and hadn't learned anything from the first goal when Devlin got caught playing a high line, trying to play Youan offside, Hibs were just hitting long through balls and catching us out, same as ICT did. We either have to defend deeper, or work on our offside line, making sure everyone is in line and no one is playing the opposition player onside. It's far too easy to get a route one ball in behind our defence.

We desperately need a win to get our confidence back, the minute we concede it all looks very shaky, Utd are in the same boat, maybe even worse than us confidence wise, so we need to score first against them and build on it, getting a 2nd goal. A win would make a huge difference to our league position and players mental psyche.