Livi v St Mirren

Time to get a long awaited home win over this mob, and our first win in the league. We're doing great in cup comps but have failed to get over the line with a win in the league, even going 2 goals up wasn't enough. Really should be on 6 points from our first 2 games. So time to up our game and take all 3 points here.

Not sure what's the score with injuries, Keaghan has been out the last 2 games, Byrne wasn't in the squad for the Morton game and neither was Gallagher, and Lithgow went off injured. Heard we're bringing in a defender from Aberdeen on loan, might need to make it an emergency loan to get him in for Saturday if both Lithgow and Gallagher are out.

St Mirren will be up for this after their gubbing last weekend, and us putting them out the cup, but if we get in about them then i'm confident we'll take the points. 3-1 Livi, fg 8 mins.

For all the reasons in your final paragraph & the fact that the home team hasn't won in matches between these teams for ages....

Liv 1 StM 2 fg 29 mins

Bertie Bassett wrote:For all the reasons in your final paragraph & the fact that the home team hasn't won in matches between these teams for ages....

Liv 1 StM 2 fg 29 mins

Are you saying we Cana da it Bertie?

Durnford wrote:

Bertie Bassett wrote:For all the reasons in your final paragraph & the fact that the home team hasn't won in matches between these teams for ages....

Liv 1 StM 2 fg 29 mins

Are you saying we Cana da it Bertie?

Naw he always errs on the side of pessimism, just wait till you see what LC puts down, he's been worse than Bertie.

Durnford wrote:

Bertie Bassett wrote:For all the reasons in your final paragraph & the fact that the home team hasn't won in matches between these teams for ages....

Liv 1 StM 2 fg 29 mins

Are you saying we Cana da it Bertie?

very good D, very good.

Tough one to call.St mirrin havent had with the exception of their Falkirk result the best of starts so far.Am not been fooled by what their fans are saying on other forums.Jack Ross will have them up for this you can be sure,hopefully Hoppy will do the same for our lads.Good to be back at home after our travels away and on that notion i reckon the Lions can sneak this by the odd goal in three.Do it Livi!!!

High winds and heavy rain forecast

FT 2 - 2
FG 23 mins

1-1 and still mirren down to 10 men at half time...can only be good for the lions, right? Nah!! Chucked it again!! Big improvement needed if we're going to stay in this league

Byrne was totally anonymous; Pttman was too slow on his own without Jacobs to back him up, Thomson seemed to be no better than we have already; And De Vita, although better than last week, was still very poor.

Cannot understand why we didn't start with Todorov in defence with the option to move him up if needs be.

IMO we were the better side but half time came too early for us as they were struggling to cope with us after the red card. Second half they were better organised defensively and they scored twice against the run of play but we defended the free kicks poorly & we didn't do enough in attack. Sampson was a bomb scare but we didn't threaten him enough.

You would have thought they had just won the league the way they (players & fans) celebrated their goals.

Halkett was unlucky on his og but did well with the equaliser. Didn't think it was a foul when they got their second but we defended it & the 3rd very poorly.

Byrne was too deep, especially against 10-men; Pittman needed a partner to work with. Thompson has a decent shot & hit the pass of the match to Mullin but the latter failed to control it. Apart from that I didn't see that he offered anything that we don't already have & he also seemed to be too deep at times. De Vita needs to watch his line as he was obviously offside too often. Mullin has played better.
Halkett was our best defende but wasn't as commanding as he can be. Gallagher mis-hit far too many passes & seemed rattled whenever the big centre half came up for set pieces. Longridge was better going forward than defending & was exposed a couple of times in the second half. Alexander had very little to do really & didn't deserve to concede 3. Mullen & Carrick worked hard for no reward. Cadden skinned his full back a couple of times but had no end product. Toddy did well to almost score when he hit the bar but apart from that got nothing to work with & neither did Mackin.

We put on two big strikers but stopped playing the high ball, this was something that bugged me last season too.

This division is a cut above the league we just won & we will need a big improvement if we want to avoid a battle at the bottom & on this evidence you can forget a top half finish. I don't think our play merited a defeat but when you make mistakes they will be punished more often. St Mirren are not particularly good but they have won on our patch yet again & that is not good enough.

Well that was frustrating, couldn't see us losing at HT when we were playing against 10 men and controlling the game, but we inadvertently gave them the perfect way to play against us. Sitting back with everyone behind the ball and hitting us on the counter, we couldn't break them down and were terrible at defending set pieces. Our own set pieces were equally abysmal, they did to us what we did to them in the Betfred game, and we could've played all night and not got a 2nd goal to put pressure on them.

Don't blame them for celebrating their goals and win, they must've thought the same as Livi fans at HT and the best they'd get was a draw. Good away support too, very vocal and decent numbers. Did they nick our drum, thought it was us that was meant to have one.

Ach well one to put behind us, we didn't play terribly bad but we need to defend set pieces a hell of a lot better. And could do with practicing our own deliveries too.

Small consolation is Brechin, Falkirk and Dumbarton lost too, and ICT drew, so we at least stayed above 3 of them and level with Dumbarton.

Sore one today. St Mirren started the better team but after we scored, I thought there was only going to be one winner, and I was convinced of it after Irvine was dismissed. Second half though, and I knew we weren't scoring; the two goals we did concede were basic errors, and near enough identical, which is immensely disappointing. When everyone in the side plays well, we look a side far more capable than what the sum of our parts suggest. On days like today though, when a few are off the boil we are very lacklustre. Thought Jacko was terrible, I've been an advocate of him as a developing player in the past but he should only be brought on at LWB when we're shoring a game up. I imagine Penrice will take the LWB role eventually, for me De Vita is an empty shirt at the moment and not adding anything. Byrne was anonymous and Pittman was off the boil, Thomson looked okay but it was evident he has no rapport with his teammates yet. Mullin was the MoTM for me, not that it means much; kept going all day and put some good balls in in the first half, a definite improvement from last season.

If we get cover in at CB and if Penrice is the real deal on the left I think we'll be fine.

I think we might have got a better result if we'd stayed 11v11 and played our normal game. When Irvine was sent off it was almost like we weren't sure how to proceed. St Mirren did though - sit in and hit on the break. We normally defend those kind of balls that led to their goals very well too.

Did we miss Lithgow? I think we might have. He may not have silky skills but he deals with a lot of the messy stuff and clears danger.

Pitman and Byrne were unusually subdued today and Danny was all over the place working away to little avail.

One of those days I hope. We were well beaten in the end which kind of makes those last two draws even more frustrating since we could realistically taken three points from them both.  

We need a win soon!

So frustrating that was yesterday.Was thinking at half time yes weve got them,how wrong could that have been.Two sucker punches from Gavin Reilly and were out of it.To many of our players were out of sorts yesterday and a quick response from them will be needed from them in the coming weeks to get their confidence back.Thought the boy Thompson looked hungry and usefull but hard to give plaudits to anyone else.For their battling qualities St Mirrin deserved their win especially when going down to ten men seemed to spur them on.Will try and put this down as a bad day at the office for the Lions but we cant afford to have to many of them in the future.Overall dissapointing.

orco wrote:I think we might have got a better result if we'd stayed 11v11 and played our normal game. When Irvine was sent off it was almost like we weren't sure how to proceed. St Mirren did though - sit in and hit on the break. We normally defend those kind of balls that led to their goals very well too.

Did we miss Lithgow? I think we might have. He may not have silky skills but he deals with a lot of the messy stuff and clears danger.

Pitman and Byrne were unusually subdued today and Danny was all over the place working away to little avail.

One of those days I hope. We were well beaten in the end which kind of makes those last two draws even more frustrating since we could realistically taken three points from them both.  

We need a win soon!

Pittman and Byrne were very poor last week as well - albeit Pittman managed to get on the score sheet but did very little else.

Both are badly exposed without Jacobs there to back them up; Pittman's lack of pace isn't such an issue with Jacobs there as the two of them feed off each other and rarely need to run far with the ball. Byrne was simply anonymous; it was almost like we were playing with ten men from the kick off; st Mirren getting a player sent off merely meant that the numbers were levelled.

Looking at the highlights it seems that Longridge was meant to be marking Reilly and loses him immediately before he scored their goals.

In my opinion though there were three fundamental shortcomings even before kick-off. Being a central defender down we should have started with Todorov in the defence (keeping the option to move him into attack later if needs be) and Cadden should have started for De Vita. Also Knox would have been a better option than Byrne particularly after last weeks "performance".

Also was disappointed not to see Peters on the bench; and is Scott Robinson injured?

Bad day at the office all round.

Not sure what you have against Pittman but you never think he contributes anything. Yesterday wasn't his best game but he never gave up, I agree on your point that he lacked support but that was down to both Byrne & Thompson sitting deep. Byrne wanted to bring the ball out of defence but Saints weren't pressing so our defenders could do that, so Byrne should have moved upfield. Thompson showed nothing that was any better than what we already have, that said he hit our best shot of the match that Sampson pushed away for a corner & our best pass which Mullin failed to control.

Need to get the cup form transferred to the league ASAP or its going to be another long hard season in this division.

Bertie Bassett wrote:Not sure what you have against Pittman but you never think he contributes anything. Yesterday wasn't his best game but he never gave up, I agree on your point that he lacked support but that was down to both Byrne & Thompson sitting deep.  Byrne wanted to bring the ball out of defence but Saints weren't pressing so our defenders could do that, so Byrne should have moved upfield. Thompson showed nothing that was any better than what we already have, that said he hit our best shot of the match that Sampson pushed away for a corner & our best pass which Mullin failed to control.

Need to get the cup form transferred to the league ASAP or its going to be another long hard season in this division.

Not saying Pittman contributed nothing Bertie; actually when he got rid of the ball quite quickly and concentrated on moving off the ball he was effective enough; when he tried to hold on to the ball he constantly got robbed but the player running in form behind; likewise when he ran with it he almost always got overtaken and robbed. He is undoubtedly at his best when he has Jacobs to play off and the two of them compliment each other's styles.

With regard to Byrne; when he's on his game he can be pretty good; still not sure he's of championship standard however. When he's not on form then he's bloody terrible. The situation when St Mirren were making yet another break after about 75 minutes, and Longridge had lost out again, he was the next nearest player yet he was jogging across. Halkett and Gallagher had to sprint across to provide additional cover.

As for Thomson; apart from occasional glimpses of quality he certainly didn't show any more than we have already and probably considerably less than Knox for example.

Apart from all of the above I also have a growing concern about our striking form; we've put the two youngsters out on loan and yet the ones we've kept do look like they're under-performing. An argument might be that strikers need time to build up an understanding but I'm not sure we have that time. Carrick always tries hard but somehow doesn't seem to deliver the end result; Mullen probably covers more of the field than any other player but that, in tern, means he's not up front when needed. In the second half he was often seen back in our half helping out the defence.

A cup run is always a risk as it can impact a league form and we're still in two of them.

Pittman was outstanding in the 2nd half at Greenock on Tues night, Byrne wasn't playing that game. I thought Thomson looked good on the ball but you can see he needs time to get on the same wavelength as the rest of our players, he was more an individual than a team player, and lost the ball that led to their first goal too. I like the look of him though, a few more games and he'll get to know other players better.

Longridge was excellent at running onto balls in the LM against Morton too, just not suitable as a CB.

If we're not playing with our usual CB 3 then maybe Hopkin should go with a back 4 with Longridge and Brown as the FB's. Or as Durnford said, stick Todorov in at the back, after all he dropped into there against Morton when Lithgow went off injured and has player there quite a lot recently, for cowdenbeath and us.

I don't think we need to panic quite yet though, first defeat in 18 games and some of our fans are starting to get twitchy on P&B, talking about cup results papering over cracks, ffs fans are up and down awfully quickly from one result to the next.  It's a long season and i'm sure we'll be fine.

Dunfermline looked very average against us and were fortunate to get a draw, but now they look world beaters after a couple of wins, I really don't think there is much between any team in the league, fine lines in games and we just need to click a bit more in the league games.

Well if you want positives we've played six games against championship teams and not failed to score in any of them. In addition we've won two and lost only one.

Our last two league games though there were too many players who didn't turn up. Given the fact that we had so much superior fitness in the early part of the season we don't appear to have the same "vim".

The Brechin match was bad and I had hoped they'd have sorted things out by now

Wasn't at the Brechin game but I was at the Morton one and they had plenty of vim in that one. I don't think we played badly yesterday though, we looked the better team after we conceded the first goal and even before they had the player red carded we were the better team. After the break though when St Mirren dropped deep putting everyone behind the ball we just lacked any idea of how to break them down, and continued to hit diagonal balls into the box but there wasn't any room to get a shot at their goal.

It is a learning experience for us, we wont often play against teams that sit in, if anything we're the one that will do that, so I doubt we'll have that problem again but hopefully Hoppy  works on what to do if it does happen again.

Yeah cup games or not, they've still been against Falkirk, Morton and St Mirren, and we've shown we have enough in us to beat them, so it'll come good for us in the league too.

I see Utd struggled against Brechin too though, and from what I've read from Utd fans posts they were a bit lucky to get the win. Not going to be many easy games this season for anyone. Even Falkirk are struggling just now.

The problem though is that the lack of wins in the league can become habitual. That was the problem in the relegation & great escape seasons. We weren't playing terribly; we did have some woeful performances but by & large we were playing as well as, if not better than, the opposition but not converting our chances or simply not creating enough chances...just like Saturday. So although I agree that it's too early to panic, the warning signs are there & need to be sorted out sooner rather than later.

On Saturday, we were doing fine until half time but we either didn't execute the manager's plan for the second half - in which case the question is why not? & it needs sorted; or we did execute the manager's plan but it was the wrong plan - in which case the question is why did he give them that plan? & that needs sorted.

Saints struggled to cope immediately after the red card but after half time they were organised & disciplined, so clearly Ross got his message across, while we still seem to suffer from half time breaks.

Losing goals to set pieces has nothing to do with the manager's plan though Bertie, by in large we still had most of the possession and controlled the game, they were breaking on us but we still defended that and never lost a goal from them breaking on us. It all came down to poor defending of high balls and set pieces, which we are normally very good at. And lack of ideas to get in behind their packed defence, which IS down to the manager making substitutions and getting word out on how he thinks we should be playing in attack.

Longridge played in a back 3 with Halkett and Lithgow against Morton last Tues and did fine, but he was struggling in the 2nd half against St Mirren, would rather we played Toddy there for his height at set pieces though.

It's the first game we've lost for 18 games too, and we were cheated out of the 3 points against Dunfermline, but still had the chance when we got our own pen, so i'd say in the league we've only had the one bad performance but still were up 2-0 at HT. Seems ridiculous to be getting worried about league results 3 games in, esp where we're sitting above 3 teams and level points with another.  If we finished where we are just now everyone would be delighted. I think we're all just desperate to get that first win in the league, and it'll settle everyone down a bit.

I'm not saying the goals conceded were down to the manager's plan or lackthereof BUT, both fouls were as a result of them breaking on us (1st one was never a foul IMO and we seemed to have dealt with their break until the ref gave the foul so ref culpable on that one as well) . We simply were not moving the ball around quickly enough to stretch them & the manager ought to have dealt with that & could have done by simple sideline communication, didn't even need to send subs on to tell them to speed up the movement.

I've also said its not panic stations yet but it has to get sorted soon or we will still be talking like this at Christmas. Also I think you'll find a small gap has already opened up between the top half & the bottom half, lose at Morton on Saturday & we could find ourselves with a small hill to climb.

I doubt you think we'll be above 7th place Bertie so you must expect a gap to open up between us and the top 4. Anywhere between 7th and 4th would do me, i'd even take 8th at a push. One win would bring us back up into the pack chasing a top 4 place.

Only if the top half teams lose.

Based on our League Cup form I fancied us for a comfy 5th or 6th but based on our league results...7th would be a superb achievement