Killie v Livi

With Hearts playing Celtic and Motherwell playing a St Johnstone who've managed draws in their last 2 games (us and Aberdeen), a win here could move us up to 4th place, tucked in behind St Mirren.

Hopefully the red card run we're getting with opponents being sent off in our last 3 league games continues, and another penalty for us would be good, now Sn Kelly is hitting the back of the net taking them.

Killie always a harder opponent at Rugby Park, have beaten both ugly sisters, McInnes always has his teams organised so we need to be ready to pounce on any mistakes. Could go either way and another draw would be acceptable but if we truly have top 6 aspirations it’s a game we should be winning.

I think a draw is the most likely outcome but wouldn’t be surprised to lose it.

Yeh,would agree its always tough down there.Hopefully the guys are fit and ready to go after the wee break.Would expect Davie to go with a just dont lose lineup here,whatever that may be.Likewise I'd not be to downhearted with a point here,but as has been said if aspirations are to be believed, a win would be tremendous against a tricky opponent.Mon the Lions..

Was surprised Bruce started against Motherwell in our last game, as was expecting a more defensive line up against a normally tough Motherwell, so hopefully it's the same against Killie, and we start our top goal scorer. Dan MacKay surely has to start too, though it's harsh on Brandon if he's left out again, for MacKay to play as a RWB, perhaps he'll just be a winger so they can both play.

Could go with Nouble-Anderson-MacKay as a front 3, or a 2-1 in attack, but that leaves out St Kelly, good to have these sort of problems.

Devlin and Montano back for this game is great news, missed both of them hugely. Montano is one you want playing in stuffy games, he can make things happen with surging runs down the wing, or cutting inside and going straight through for goal.


2-0 Livi, Montano and Anderson with our goals, tempting to go 3-0 with Kelly scoring another penalty too.


We won 3-2 away last season, in which Kelly scored from the spot, might've been the last time he scored a penalty for us last season too.

Listening to Davies pre match thoughts,I'm not too sure if Devlin and Montano will start this game.zHe says both are back in training and may be involved on Saturday.Also says he's got to look at the opposition and plan accordingly.Take from that what you will.With Davie you just never know.On the plus side,both Louie and Mo came back from international duty injury free.Thank god..

I'll take a draw.

Well, we’re losing it and I’m not surprised. Didn’t like the line up that I saw.
I presume Obileye is injured.

Holt & Nouble havn’t played well for ages but still always start, Pitts blows hot and cold. Anderson gets very little service.

Let's get it right here.Killie deserved that.They had attacking prowess where we didn't.Defencivly we were shocking for a couple of there goals.Dont know what was wrong with Obiley today but for once I think we missed him.The F/B forum currently going into meltdown ffs,wont comment, il stay here for my sanity.Overall,albeit still early in the season,others around us have games in hand now due to postponements.Were currently in 7th place.I suspect that won't last long going on todays performance.Next week crucial, in front of potentialy 4k extra fans‍�.Oh,remiss of me to forget. RIP Sir Bobby Charlton.Legend of the game.I saw him in 1969 at Hampden,home International i think.What a player..

Bobby Charlton seems to have been one of the good guys, certainly knew how to strike a ball. If our players had half his talent we’d be challenging for the title.

Well that was a pile of poop.

As much as Obileye gets it in the neck for his brain fart moments, he is a solid defender in a back 3, and a massive miss for us defending balls into our box. Think it was Orco that pointed it out last season, our bad run ending the season was without Obileye, and we conceded a hell of a lot of goals away from home in that spell, hope he isn't out long.

Yip. Obileye can be a bombscare with the ball at his feet but he deals with everything in the air. No one else in the defence has that ability.
But that apart what happened to the Livi side that pressed opposition players to within an inch of their lives? We stand off now. Nobody is scared of us any more.
Ah my heart aches for Gallagher, Halkett, Lithgow

orco wrote:Yip. Obileye can be a bombscare with the ball at his feet but he deals with everything in the air. No one else in the defence has that ability.
But that apart what happened to the Livi side that pressed opposition players to within an inch of their lives? We stand off now. Nobody is scared of us any more.
Ah my heart aches for Gallagher, Halkett, Lithgow

'Super Shauny Byrne'.

That press for our goal against Utd away in the Premiership play offs was prime Livi. He chased down the ball, back and forth, running at Utd players till he got in a foot and sent it to Pitts, and the rest is history.

Big Guthrie is our last CB to be aggressive defending* and attacking high balls at set pieces. Obileye is decent defending high balls but has a heid like a thrupenny bit heading it when we have a set piece into their box, we rarely score from free kicks and corners now.

Has there been any news on why Obileye was out, can understand not wanting to tip the opposition off to him being injured a few days before the Killie match, but he's missing from that game and t would be good if the club updated the fans on what's happening. If he's still out for our home game against Dundee, i wonder if Montano will be drafted into the back 3 with Devlin & de Lucas, he's good in the air and can tackle defensively with him being a FB. And get Kelly further up the pitch into midfield.

We're all bunched up just above the play offs again, or prob will be once the teams below us play their games in hand, really need to win our home game against Dundee to give ourselves some breathing space. Think we're going to be depending a lot on our usual purple patch run of wins around Nov/Dec/Jan, or we're going to be in the relegation dogfight this season.

*Also think Shamal could be a bit more aggressive coming for the ball at corners, he's 6ft 7 ffs, with his arms up he's already 8ft without even jumping, he should be claiming high balls into our box no problem.

I’ve been saying that about Shamal for ages…

If he’s 6’7” then his “wingspan” is also 6’7” - the width of his chest is probably about 2’ max which makes each arm approx 2’9” in length take off about 1’ for the distance from shoulder to top of his head and you’ve got 6’7” + 1’9”… which is 8’4” - so his fingers should be above the bar just reaching up.

So he should be claiming every high ball into the box…. But then I remember 5’5” Maradona out jumping 6’ Peter Shilton with his hand tight to his napper, so I suppose there are no guarantees

Somebody on the Facebook forum said Obileye got injured passing the ball to Martindale. Hope it's not serious. They need to watch what they're doing in training. We lost Montano for weeks because of a training injury.

orco wrote:Somebody on the Facebook forum said Obileye got injured passing the ball to Martindale. Hope it's not serious. They need to watch what they're doing in training. We lost Montano for weeks because of a training injury.

From an interview yesterday.

The gaffer says he hopes to welcome back Obileye for next weekend's clash with Dundee and revealed Luiyi de Lucas was thrown in having just arrived back from international duty the previous morning.

He said: "Ayo should be fine. It was touch and go for the game and we missed him.