Livi vs Dumbarton

Strangely ignoring last night's painful exhibition I'm actually feeling strangely optimistic about this one.

I don't think having Gallagher in front of the other defenders really worked yesterday and against the aging Dumbarton front line I'd go for a flat four defence.

I like Robinson's attacking nature but would move him properly back into midfield; I also think it work giving Thompson another run.

Last night I though Boyd started to really relish having an out-and-out forward role and, although he lost the ball too often, I felt he could do well partnered with someone significantly taller.

My lineup is:

Alexander
Gallagher Buchanan Halkett Lithgow
Byrne
Pittman Robinson Thompson
Boyd Hardie

My prediction is 3 - Nil to Livi with the first goal on 19 mins.

Yeah Gallagher kept knocking the ball straight up the pitch to either the CB's or keeper, just gave possession back to Falkirk so they could come back at us again. Didn't see the point of that at all. We've got good ball players in Pittman, Byrne, Boyd and Robinson, we need to play it on the deck and move it around.

The midfield and front 2 look good D, but not sure Hoppy will go with that back 4 in defence, he tends to stick at his same formation from one game to the next. Looks like he's trying to shoe horn some players into the team to keep giving them games, rather than change the team selection to suit our best formation.

We've been dire at home since November, really need to start picking up wins at home, hopefully the midweek game will have helped sharpen us up or I can see this being another grind and either a 0-0 or 1-0 to Dumbarton.

Goes against my every fibre predicting defeats so i'll go all in with my fingers crossed and wearing my lucky football socks for a 2-0 Livi win, fg 16 mins.

Holy shit, just looked at our league results to check our home form, it's worse than I thought, last time we won a league game at home was the 28th October, that's grim.

We've hardly played at home since then though.

I've been saying for a while but no one is paying attention, we have hit a slump & I think it will continue.

Liv 1 Dum 1

FG 35 mins

And we will be hanging on by our fingernails at the end.

You should change your avatar to this one Bertie.

Bertie Bassett wrote:We've hardly played at home since then though.

I've been saying for a while but no one is paying attention, we have hit a slump & I think it will continue.

I agree we've dropped off a bit over the last couple of months but we've only lost 3 of our last 10, if that's a slump I can't wait to see what we're like when we're out of it.


Don't like playing Dumbarton, last home game against them was weird and somehow it was actually us scoring a late goal. Iain Russell is certain to score, and I'll hate watching it

2-1 Livi, FG 23 mins.

Looks like the weather may again be a factor on Saturday. Winds of 40mph. What is it about Saturday home games! Can we no get a mild sunny day for a change.

Wonder if Dumbarton still have that player who could score from corners. I well remember him putting one straight into our net on a windy Saturday at Boghead a couple of seasons ago.

orco wrote:Looks like the weather may again be a factor on Saturday. Winds of 40mph. What is it about Saturday home games! Can we no get a mild sunny day for a change.

The fixtures could definitely be a lot harsher for us after all these postponements, depending on their Scottish Cup game St Johnstone might end up playing 16 games in 50 days, i.e. every midweek until the middle of March.

Dunfermline fans are talking about our postponed game with them going ahead on Saturday 10th of February since we are both out of the cup. Sounds sensible.

Liviforever wrote:You should change your avatar to this one Bertie.

It's an injustice, so it is, yeah.

Looking at the fixtures i'd say QoS have the easiest game and are the most likely to pick up 3 points, and move onto 33 point to be level with us. ICT could well be on 33 points too, so we really need to be winning this, or at least get a draw to guarantee staying 4th.

Dunfermline v St Mirren (Friday)- A draw or a Pars defeat here seems likely.

Dundee Utd v Morton- Utd's home record is very good so i'd say they'll win this one.

Falkirk v ICT-Hopefully Falkirk will continue their recent form here and take at least a draw.

QoS v Brechin-Can't see past a Queens win, but Brechin have had the odd draw so you never know.

Livi v Dumbarto-TBH i'd be looking at this as a good chance of us dropping points if I was an opposition fan, so it does look like QoS has a better chance than the rest of us to take all 3 points, but we're 6 points from 2 games against them already so lets make it 9 points.

Really could be a cracking weekend for us though if we can manage to win our game and then see other results going our way.

I'm not coming back on here till after the game now so Bertie can't put a dampener on my optimism.

Keep an eye on your PErsonal Message box LF!!!!

Aware that Byrne and Longridge are suspended so thinking more of the team Hopkin would choose rather than what I'd go with:


Can't see him dropping Gallagher considering how Dumbarton set themselves up. They're due a result too with their league form not being great so that'll obviously mean: Livingston 1. Dumbarton 2. FG 28 mins.

February looks like it may very well be a defining month for us, so going into it on the back of a win here would be excellent. Sadly, IMO, and everyone on this board knows it, Dumbarton are the most awkward team we've ever faced. Only one result here: away win.

0-1, FG 68 mins.

Hoping to make this tommorow if my health allows it,was torture not making Tuesday night albeit the result.Really cant call this so anything other than a defeat willdo for me.iknow its an old cliche but although we are at home i dont know what Livi team is gonna turn up.Hearing on P&B that theyve got a few players out tommorow but i wouldnt read to much into that.Aitken will have them set up to frustrate us no doubt so it will probably be difficult to break them down.Will be nice to see Beany back and i for one wont be booing him but i do hope he has a shitey day.Got to get back on the ropes Livi.Lets do it!!!

orco wrote:Looks like the weather may again be a factor on Saturday. Winds of 40mph. What is it about Saturday home games! Can we no get a mild sunny day for a change.

Wonder if Dumbarton still have that player who could score from corners. I well remember him putting one straight into our net on a windy Saturday at Boghead a couple of seasons ago.

Cracking weather for a game of hoofball, should make for interesting defending and goalkeeping.

Great result, puts us nicely into 3rd...need to keep the momentum going though. Nice to see hardie get off the mark too

Much better game today, some nice football too. Did more in the first attack than we did all game against Falkirk, when we worked the ball up the pitch and didn't just launch it. Saying that Hardie's goal came from a long ball but it was a quality one, and he showed great strength and composure to stick it away. Lovely corner and goal by De Vita and Lithgow for our first too, almost added another one doing the exact same thing later in the game.

Could easily have been 5-0 but good to see us keeping the pressure on the ball when we were defending this time and not sitting off them thinking the game was over.

I like the look of Hardie, big awkward player to play against and has some nice touches to get his shot away, should've had a penalty near the end when he was hauled down. Tried to stay on his feet instead of just looking for the penalty and gets rewarded for his honesty by the officials ignoring him being fouled, well done lino & ref ya pair of useless twats.

I think we looked a lot better when Buchanan went off with a concussion and Gallagher dropped back into defence, and also Robinson coming on, nothing against Buchanan as he was solid, but Hoppy needs to just play the 3 CB's and have actual midfielders instead of shoehorning another CB into the team.

On other results, surprised to see Utd lose at home but other results went as expected (well maybe Falkirk winning instead of drawing was a wee surprise) still worked out well for us. And couldn't really see Brechin taking points off QoS. So we go back up to 3rd place, and tbh I don't think Utd are untouchable for 2nd place now, it's there for the taking.

Pretty well summed up there LF.

I would add that I thought Pittman did a power of work after Buchanan went off. Protected the defence, made some great tackles & still got forward at times.

Lithgow has improved immensely under Hoppy's tenure.

Workmanlike performance from Livi yesterday in testing conditions i thought.Pass marks all over the pitch and i thought the scoreline flattered a poor Dumbarton side.The boy Hardie a stand out for me and should have had a penalty late on if it were not for the ineptitude of the stand side linesmane.An absolute stonewaller if ever ive seen one.Hope Buchannons injury isnt to serious as he looks very decent in there although the boy who replaced him did very well.All in All a good days work but some testing times around the corner but we are pulling away from that area down there slowly but surely which has given us all the feelgood factor without making any brash statements or getting carried away.Long may it continue and well done to Hoppy and the boys for putting us in this position.

Yeah Hardie being hauled down was a stonewaller, very like Mullen's against Dunfermline in the league opener. I think it was him that had his shirt held onto in the penalty box too and you clearly saw him being held back, so that also should've been a penalty, if I can see it sitting in the stand then feck knows how the lino didn't notice it, looked like the boy was trying to take the shirt off his back and couldn't wait till the end of the game to do it.

Highlights are up already: https://vimeo.com/253077363

Lithgow gets some height on his jump for his goal, fantastic long ball up to Hardie too, and very well taken, cool head on him as he left the defender on his arse and calmly slots it past the keeper.
Still don't see what the foul was for after Hardie hit the post and went in for the rebound. There were a few puzzling decisions from the ref blowing for fouls against us yesterday.

Again, agree with your thoughts LF. The ref got my back up right from the start when the ball went out for our throw & as Cadden was trying to retrieve it as it rolled away, the ref blew his whistle to tell him to get back to where the ball went out, Cadden hadn't even got his hand on the ball!

Just seen the highlights, what a pass from Lithgow then great pace and strength from Hardie for the second, then fantastic composure to cut onto his left and place it under the keeper. He was really unlucky with the effort off the post too. Can see Hardie and Miller being big signings for us in this second half of the season

Lithgow has done a few long balls up to our front men that have gotten us goals, he's been immense this season. Halkett gets all the attention but I think Lithgow has been equally good in defence and has a great long range pass on him for hitting on the counter, hopefully we get him signed up again for next season.

orco wrote:Dunfermline fans are talking about our postponed game with them going ahead on Saturday 10th of February since we are both out of the cup. Sounds sensible.

Hopefully this goes ahead, would mean another tough game in Feb but at least it wouldn't be a midweek game. We also could do with a run of games every weekend and not have another break between Saturdays, we've had too many stop starts that hasn't helped with our home results the last 2 months.