Livi v St Johnstone

May as well start this match thread, the Hibs defeat has given us a wee life line for an unexpected last stab at top 6. Though Martindale doesn't want to talk about it anymore, which is fine by me, just concentrate on the football, win our next two games, and see where it takes us.

St Johnstone are in worse form than us, and their fans want rid of double cup winning manager Callum Davidson, so make of that what you will. We've already beaten them twice this season playing a 4-3-3, so hopefully now that Martindale has admitted his set up in our last 2 games was detrimental to our attack, he'll revert back to that 4-3-3 formation, and also start Anderson. Or even a 4-2-3-1, either one has won us games.

I'll be checking my phone constantly in the Almondvale suite pre match for our starting line up, if i see Guthrie and Nouble on it, and Anderson on the bench, i might be tempted to stay in the boozer till chucking out time, then head up the road. Or at least till HT when we're 3-0 down again.

Just keep it simple. Work hard and don't give them a minute on the ball.
If we get beat but give it our best shot then fair enough. But cut out the master planning and get back to what we do best.

Who do St Johnstone like to play when they can’t buy a win? Livingston - thankfully we are also in poor form so at least this time it won’t be a surprise defeat.

Hibs play out of sorts Hearts, so they will win that one. Which means we need to win to stay in touch.
So I suspect the top 6 will be officially out of reach at full time

Edin derby is a 12.30 ko, so we'll know if Hibs dropped pts before we play, even a draw would do us, with our GD the only way left for us to reach the thing that must not be mentioned, is two wins, 4pts isn't going to cut it anyway. Unless Hibs lost their next game against Killie, but i'd rather be going into the Utd game sitting above Hibs knowing a win would do it, no matter what their result was.

Auld Nick wrote:Who do St Johnstone like to play when they can’t buy a win? Livingston - thankfully we are also in poor form so at least this time it won’t be a surprise defeat.

Hibs play out of sorts Hearts, so they will win that one. Which means we need to win to stay in touch.
So I suspect the top 6 will be officially out of reach at full time

Didn't work for them the last twice they played us, 1-0 and 4-2 Livi.

Hibs are also out of sorts, 1 win and 4 defeats in their last 5 games.

Anything could happen in both games, all 4 of us are playing mince.

Well, that was much better, other results leave us still needing Saints or Hibs to drop points next week and us to win against a United side that have just beaten the same Motherwell that tore us apart last week but that was a massive 3 points as it means Dundee United & Ross County must win at least 5 of their last 6 games to catch us, so we are extremely unlikely to finish lower than 10th and assuming Killie lose to Celtic tomorrow that becomes 9th.

Shamal actually came to collect a few crosses. Devlin had some decent attacking forays and on the whole defended ok. Fitz was solid, Boyes mainly solid, Montano showed glimpses of his early season form. Holt was reliable throughout, Bradley had some decent possession and did okay with it, Kelly was decent and scored a cracker, Nouble was good - not as good as he can be but still good - and took his goal superbly, Anderson gave us much more energy up front and set up Noobs superbly, deserved a goal for his unselfish running and harrying as well as his ball control and passing, just a pity he fluffed his one really good chance. That leaves Shinnie… my MotM by a country mile. He didn’t do anything fancy but he covered almost every blade of plastic, covered for guys when they were out of position or when they made a mistake and always looked to make a forward pass, I thought he had one of his best games in a Livi shirt and was outstanding. All the subs contributed as well.

It wasn’t perfect as Saints had enough chances to get something from the game but were unable to capitalise on them and wouldn’t have deserved it over the piece. We saw our guys hunting the ball down when we lost possession for the first time in ages which was very pleasing.

Auld Nick wrote:Well, that was much better, other results leave us still needing Saints or Hibs to drop points next week and us to win against a United side that have just beaten the same Motherwell that tore us apart last week but that was a massive 3 points as it means Dundee United & Ross County must win at least 5 of their last 6 games to catch us, so we are extremely unlikely to finish lower than 10th and assuming Killie  lose to Celtic tomorrow that becomes 9th.

Shamal actually came to collect a few crosses. Devlin had some decent attacking forays and on the whole defended ok. Fitz was solid, Boyes mainly solid, Montano showed glimpses of his early season form. Holt was reliable throughout, Bradley had some decent possession and did okay with it, Kelly was decent and scored a cracker, Nouble was good - not as good as he can be but still good - and took his goal superbly, Anderson gave us much more energy up front and set up Noobs superbly, deserved a goal for his unselfish running and harrying as well as his ball control and passing, just a pity he fluffed his one really good chance. That leaves Shinnie… my MotM by a country mile. He didn’t do anything fancy but he covered almost every blade of plastic, covered for guys when they were out of position or when they made a mistake and always looked to make a forward pass, I thought he had one of his best games in a Livi shirt and was outstanding. All the subs contributed as well.

It wasn’t perfect as Saints had enough chances to get something from the game but were unable to capitalise on them and wouldn’t have deserved it over the piece. We saw our guys hunting the ball down when we lost possession for the first time in ages which was very pleasing.

You took that too far. Though once we were 2-0 up he looked far more positive, and passed the ball forward a hell of a lot more than i've ever seen him do.

Who knew that having Anderson on from the start would see Nouble play a lot better and score a goal. It is Anderson's pressing and constant running that helps free Nouble up to do his stuff. St Johnstone missed a few sitters but then so did we, some great build up play from us deserved a few more goals, Montano and Anderson in particular passed up chances that would've completed some slick passing.

It's gutting we're depending on Killie and St Johnstone doing us a turn, as well as needing to win against Utd, after sitting 4th and looking like we would have top 6 in the bag with a few games to spare, but that's where we are now, and we'll just need to get that win next week and see what happens in the other games. I'll head up to Dundee now anyway, we've had some great moments up there winning games and celebrating the 3-2 play off win, if everything goes our way and we make top 6 there'll be some scenes at Tannadice in the Livi end.

You do him a disservice.

Shinniesta.

We won but that referee was a joke.

We need first of all to win next week against a resurgent Dundee United and hope that St Mirren get beat by Kilmarnock (who are currently 4 down v Celtic after half an hour, or Hibs draw or get beat by St Johnstone who are no very good.
We need to hope for the Motherwell miracle of the final game last season where we were playing them off the park, went 2 up and then had it snatched away by a freak goal in the last few minutes. Aye it's possible but all the stars in the milky way will need to be in perfect alignment.

St Johnstone have sacked Davidson.

How sweet would it be if us beating them yesterday, had a knock on effect of getting a new/sacked manager bounce against Hibs, and helped us get a top 6 spot next weekend.

It's also my birthday next Saturday, would be a lovely birthday present getting a win over Utd and a top 6 spot.

Liviforever wrote:Shinniesta.