2017/18 Ins and Outs Thread

My point is... If he really is a wunderkind he should be in our match day squad every week & at the very least coming on as a sub.

Yep, Snoddy was already playing against SPL teams at his age, about time he was showing the potential he has by getting into our first team.

Mackin scored a goal in his debut for Brechin, unfortunately they lost 3-1 to Falkirk.

I'm surprised they have done as poorly as they have... They strengthened in the summer and have been trickier opponents for us this season compared to last season but they appear to be so far out of their depth I almost feel sorry for them.

We now only need 4 points to mathematically guarantee we won't go down automatically.

They're still a League One team really, could've had a few more points and maybe even a win in the first half of the season but just can't get over the line without conceding late goals. PT League One and Two teams always struggled more after January when we played down there, even worse for them playing in a FT league against 8 FT teams.
Financially they'll have made quite a bit this season though, so you'd expect them to do well next season back in League One.

Hopefully yesterdays performance has put an end to anyone having envious eye for Dunfermline's Andy Ryan. The poor man's Jamie Insall at best; I can certainly see why he's rarely appeared for the Pars, even off the bench, and tries to supplement his lack of any tangible skill with falling over and rolling on the floor.
Suspect he'll be a free agent in the summer; maybe Brechin will sign him up as cover for their first division campaign - provided he's prepared to lower his wage demands.

He was a lot better last season playing for Airdrie.

Yeh, but he didn't spend half the game on his erse last season. The whole Dunfermline team are serial divers.

Have to confess I was never impressed by Ryan last season & I was surprised he scored as many goals as he did... But he could take a pen - not sure how many of his total were pens but if Liam Buchanan could have scored his pens then I think he would have outscored Ryan.

Yesterday I thought he was largely anonymous until the incident where Thompson got sent off & Ryan was subbed shortly after that anyway.

Bertie Bassett wrote:Have to confess I was never impressed by Ryan last season & I was surprised he scored as many goals as he did... But he could take a pen - not sure how many of his total were pens but if Liam Buchanan could have scored his pens then I think he would have outscored Ryan.

Yesterday I thought he was largely anonymous until the incident where Thompson got sent off & Ryan was subbed shortly after that anyway.

Likewise I was unimpressed by him but can only base my opinion on the games where we played Airdrie. In all cases he seemed to run about a lot in the first half and became almost anonymous in the second. Not sure that he ever saw out ninety minutes and his fitness was pretty poor for a supposed full-time professional.

Earlier in the season some were saying if we'd signed him we'd be virtually guaranteed to survive in the Championship; frankly I think we'd have been better keeping hold of Carrick.

He scored in the 53rd and 65th min against us in our 4-2 win over them, and also scored in our 2-1 cup win against Airdrie, I think he was suspended for the next game, but he wasn't up to much in our 4-0 win over them and same again in the 4-2 win for our final game against them, he scored a 90th min penalty.

I think Russell was taking most of the pens that season though, and Ryan was winning them for him, was only after Beany missed a couple that Ryan started taking them, so doubt he had any advantage over Buchanan from penalty goals, Buchanan prob scored more from the penalty spot that season than Ryan.

Looking at the times of his goals last season, he scored a fair few in the 2nd half around 60 to 77 minutes, even one in the 93rd min, so don't think he faded that much in games. It's prob that he wasn't up to much in the last couple of games against us that the both of you don't rate him.

He was the League One's top scorer though and scored 4 goals against us in a poor Airdrie team, on that showing i'd have been delighted to have had him at Livi. I'm sure Hoppy would've got him playing better than he was yesterday for the Pars too, looked a shadow of the player I saw last season.

Kalvin Orsi has managed to score approximately one goal for every fifty minutes of game play against us this season playing in a very poor Brechin side. I haven't notice anyone mentioning that we should sign him up yet though.

As far as I can see Ryan scored 6 goals after the hour mark last season; one of which was a penalty.

Incidentally as far as I can recall the two goals scored against us in our 4 - 2 win were by Conroy on 34 minutes and a Ryan penalty at 90. https://livingstonfc.co.uk/livingston-4-2-airdrieonians/

Yeah, he scored twice against us at their place early last season, we were pasting them and they pulled one back but we pasted them again & they pulled another back but that was a 4-2 going on 8-2, the score flattered them immensely. Same with the 4-2 at our place, the late pen made the score look tighter than it was.

I hadn't remembered that it was Ryan that scored the 2 early season but I do remember they were astonishingly bad at the back and we should have scored more than we did.

Bertie Bassett wrote:Yeah, he scored twice against us at their place early last season, we were pasting them and they pulled one back but we pasted them again & they pulled another back but that was a 4-2 going on 8-2, the score flattered them immensely. Same with the 4-2 at our place, the late pen made the score look tighter than it was.

I hadn't remembered that it was Ryan that scored the 2 early season but I do remember they were astonishingly bad at the back and we should have scored more than we did.

Yep - this was a side that kept throwing everything into attack and defence was almost an after-thought. Actually they had a central defence of Boateng and Mensing for a large part of the season its amazing they didn't go down.

Ryan had the potential to be a good player, I don't think there's any doubt in that, but I don't think he's every really been a team player and the fact that he continues to be relatively unfit which for a 23 year old is pretty unforgivable.

Looking at his stats he's obviously been impressive at the lower levels for the likes of Forfar and Airdrie but his three years with Hamilton in the first/championship saw him play 83 games for a total of 9 goals (he never scored in any of his premiership appearances with Hamilton).

I get the feeling that he's one of these guys who assumes that, as he played for a premier side, he's too good for any other league and isn't prepared to put the effort in. Personally I'd far prefer top keep hold of someone like Pittman who's really grafted to get where he is; puts the effort in and is always prepared to learn.

If Scott gets tackled he's immediately back on his feet to carry on the game - he never remains lying down doing a starfish impersonation and if he does remain on the ground you can be pretty sure he's hurt.

Likewise with Todorov; coming from a premier side you might have expected a bit of attitude but all I ever got was that the guy wanted to play football.

Sometimes players are dropped to the bench and it fires them up into wanting to fight for a place; others seem to go into a sort of massive sulk; we've had our fair share of both.

Sorry if I'm ranting on a bit but Ryan's performance on Saturday really got to me; more so than even Jamie Insall's reaction to getting Lithgow sent off last year. Rant over!

Speaking of Jamie Insall -)

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/former-hibs-forward-jamie-insall-12003581

Durnford wrote:Kalvin Orsi has managed to score approximately one goal for every fifty minutes of game play against us this season playing in a very poor Brechin side. I haven't notice anyone mentioning that we should sign him up yet though.

As far as I can see Ryan scored 6 goals after the hour mark last season; one of which was a penalty.

Incidentally as far as I can recall the two goals scored against us in our 4 - 2 win were by Conroy on 34 minutes and a Ryan penalty at 90. https://livingstonfc.co.uk/livingston-4-2-airdrieonians/

He scored both their goals in the 4-2 away game.

Maybe would if Orsi was the league's top goal scorer.

Yeah and that shows he doesn't just fade in games as you're making out. In any case, are you seriously saying you'd be complaining if he scored 30 odd goals for us but only 6 of them was after the hour mark?  

It's obv you don't rate him but you're making things up to try and say he's a crap player, which he isn't, he scored more goals than Buchanan in a crap Airdrie team, and also won a fair few penalties for Beany to score. I'm sure He won at least 2 of the 3 penalties Beany scored in the game against QP.
I doubt his fitness would even be in question if we had signed him, not with Hoppy in charge, even Mackin has improved (slightly) and he's the laziest striker I've seen at Livi.

orco wrote:Speaking of Jamie Insall -)

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/former-hibs-forward-jamie-insall-12003581

FFS, what an arsehole he really is.

Sorry LL but he's had one good year in a poor division. Last season he scored 27 goals in all competitions didn't he; which was exactly what Liam Buchanan score despite being ten years his senior. All the years he's played at this level he's been very poor. Fitness or not Dylan Mackin scored 8 goals in 14 games for us.

In my personal opinion the only way Ryan would score 30 goals in a season would be if he was playing a couple of leagues below where we are now.

This season he's scored two goals against Championship opposition (Morton and Dumbarton). the rest of his goals were against lower league opposition (Arbroath; Buckie Thistle; Queens Park). The ascertion though that Hopkins could have brought something out of him that others haven't managed (particularly bearing in mind that DAFC's budget for training facilities and fitness is miles ahead of ours; as for that matter was Airdrie's) seems to be based on little other than faith. He didn't seem to manage it with Peters; Watt or Sheerin for example.

Actually the fact that our current players manage to maintain such a high level of fitness across most of the team says a lot for the current coaches and team.

To be honest I don't think I ever described Ryan as crap per se although I would certainly agree with that assessment based on his performance last Saturday. Also his previous history at this level is less than impressive; however it will be interesting to see how many his season total comes out at for Dunfermline and whether he can increase his current league total of two.

Liviforever wrote:

orco wrote:Speaking of Jamie Insall -)

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/former-hibs-forward-jamie-insall-12003581

FFS, what an arsehole he really is.

We agree on something

Actually I'd hoped the world had move on from such things; evidently I was wrong.

Good comments on Pittman there D. You are absolutely right, he doesn't shirk a tackle & doesn't lie dying only to experience a miraculous recovery - Ryan on the other hand, admittedly took a sore one on Saturday from Thompson (video evidence that I have seen will not get the red card rescinded) but from collapsing in a heap & looking like he would need an act of God to get him on his feet, he eventually got up with clearly nothing wrong with him.

On twitter Livi have started contract negotiations and Hoppy hopes to have a few of them finalised over the next couple of weeks.

I presume you mean with a view to keeping some the guys we currently have that are going to be out of contract at the end of the season?

Bertie Bassett wrote:I presume you mean with a view to keeping some the guys we currently have that are going to be out of contract at the end of the season?

I took it as Hoppy's contract...I'm sure his is up at the end of the season. If we get him confirmed then it might help convince others to stay like halkett, Pittman, Byrne etc

So of the guys may hold out to see if there's a realistic chance of us getting to the premiership.

I know its still a long shot, and even if we did the question remains would we end up doing a Brechin, but the opportunity for many of these guys to play on the big stage would be a substantial benefit.

Lithgow in particular i think would bite your hand off to get a change as would Gallagher and Pittman.

Halkett and Byrne will probably be subject to offers from elsewhere but Byrne would, I think, love the opportunity to stick a finger up at Dunfermline; the club that let him go when they were promoted from 1st presumably because they didn't feel he was championship material. Halkett likewise would probably relish the opportunity to play against the old firm.

I know this is all a big step in the assumptions league but if most of us were aiming for eighth position this year maybe some of the players were likewise and our success to date has taken many by surprise.

Of course the challenge for the board is what is our average gate going to be like next year? With all the success we has thus far this season we've barely seen any improvement on the turnstiles; other than being successful, in championship terms, what more do we need to do to entice more people to the games?

(Sorry for the ramblings - well and truly off topic now)

Also seen this from Callum Carson:

Callum Carson wrote:he [Hopkins] gets the impression that most of the current squad would be happy to sign on for next season but concedes some may want to test themselves at a higher level.

Interesting to see Nathan Austin isn't even getting a start with ICT despite them pricing us out of the running with wages and property deal.

Obviously not the regular proven goalscorer they were looking for.