Accies v Livi

I think we really need to take the points in this game, we've Celtic up next after Accies and that would prob put us on 4 games without a win, which could see everyone below us catching right up, would also love for us to get a top 6 spot this season, and from what I've seen we're looking even better that last season with a really strong squad, but we need to start scoring goals.

Agree we need to win this but then again its a Livi tradition that, after an excellent performance, everyone seems to under-perform.

Hopefully that wont be the case here; certainly if we continue to vein of form from last night we should be all over them; hopefully we can start scoring goals again. Hamilton seem to have had more than their fair share of red cards so far this season but they also managed to restrict Celtic to a single goal win so who knows. If they set out to try and defend in depth and stifle our attack then who knows.

I was worried Dykes wouldn't make this game after all the kicks he took last night, Holt saying his ankle is all swollen and will have to wait 48 hours to see if the swelling goes down and how it looks, isn't expecting him to make it for Saturday. Hoping this is Holt playing mind games and Dykes appears on the team sheet just before KO.

Fingers crossed Dykes makes this,his importance to us is evident recently and would be a big blow to us if he didnt make it.Wont be an easy game this,and i reckon Brian Rice would have been whatching Wednesdays game with great interest.The players put so much effort into that game that i sincerely hope that they havent burnt themselves out for what is a massive game for us in the grand sceme of things.Obviously the injuries to Lithgow and Pitts were more serious than we thought at the time and i for one cant wait to see them both back.With the up and coming games in mind anything other than a defeat would do for me but of course we know we are well capable of taking all 3 points if we can start taking our chances.Same as usual first goal will be crucial and i hope we get it.Good luck to Gary and the lads.Do it!!!

Hopefully get a win here, get a bit of confidence and give Celtic a fright a week tomorrow, hoping they have a hangover from the their Thursday night game against Cluj and we get a first win against them. But getting a bot ahead of myself.
Was not too sure about Lyndon Dykes at the beginning of the season, but he is really improving week on week and if he keeps improving the way he is, we may not be able to keep a hold of him.

Bl00dy awful performance and game. Personally thought both teams would have struggled in the championship playing like that.

Other than Bartley pretty much no-one got pass marks compared with how they played on Wednesday.Why on earth Holt thought dropping Keaghan for Stobbs was a good idea; likewise swapping Sarkic for Stewart was a very bad idea.

The other thing that really get me is, okay we have to play Robinson as the centre forward in Dykes' absence, why, oh why, persist in trying to play high balls into the area?

What a waste of a Saturday afternoon. Hopefully we can get it sorted before the visit of Celtic in a week's time.

Agree with that round up Durnford. We were poor but still better than Hamilton imo though. I thought Tiffoney did well in the time he was on. He has good positional sense and for a wee guy doesn't get intimidated physically. He was certainly better than Stobbs who could take lessons from Lawless on chasing and stopping balls from going out of play instead of just stopping short without trying.
I am looking forward to seeing what the penalty was for. I was at the other end of the pitch but it looked to me that Stewart had come out and punched the ball clear. Certainly the guy who went down was built like a tank so it must have taken some force on our goalie's part. I'm sure he wouldn't have dived.
Frustrating and disappointed.

I'll cut the team a wee bit of slack after their bruising effort against The Rangers on Wednesday but to be honest that performance today was pretty brutal.These are the six pointers we should hopefully be winning but certainly not losing. Hamilton didn't have a game on Wednesday and they were as mince as we were.
We looked jaded all over the park with passes going astray and bad positioning from the players. Even at 1 0 up I had a bad feeling about this game and even more so when they equalised right at the start of additional time in the first half.

I agree with Orco about Stobbs, did very little today and Holt should have hooked him earlier than he did. We looked a bit livelier after Tiffoney and Sibbald came on but again they should have made an appearance a lot earlier. The penalty? I'll reserve judgement till I've seen the TV highlights, looked harsh.

All in all a bad day at the office and we must really sharpen up and be more alert against Celtic or they'll run all over the top of us. Anything from that game would be a bonus even a narrow defeat which will be the best we'll get if we repeat today's lacklustre offering.

This is what frustrates me, we get plaudits for playing well & failing against the better sides & then play poorly against the so called wee teams. We have a tendency to play to the level of the opposition instead of playing to the level we are capable of.

Couldn’t go today but very surprised & disappointed by the result.

Agree with fanfromday1, have to give them the benefit of the doubt that it caught up with us today after putting so much into Wed night against Sevco, that's the worst I've seen us this season.

At times it looked like a bunch of strangers playing, nobody knowing what the other person was doing, or where they were going, passing into the space a player was at who now was making a run, or just plainly passing it to no aunt and putting it out of the pitch. Dreadful game to watch, and I don't think we even created a single chance on goal, so it wasn't even that we were missing chances this time, we didn't fecking create any.

Great that Lithgow scored though, apart from that I think we had one other near effort from a set piece, which is annoying. I think we need to work on them again, there doesn't appear to be a target man for Lithgow's throw ins, Gallagher was excellent at that but now he's throwing it into the box and the opposition defender gets it, which seems a waste when we were a real threat from them.

Another thing that annoyed me today, we just didn't get the ball down the wings and work overlaps, it was all played short, which made it very easy to defend against us. Only time we got a bit of joy was when Tiffoney came on, and we had a wee spell of pressure getting in behind them, too little too late by then though.

Oh and their goal, wtf was our defenders doing there, a throw in didn't get defended, then it gets put across our box and 2 accies players were standing unmarked queueing up to hit it into our net. No idea about the pen decision, heard on the radio that Rice said it was for a push, Accies players were pushing Souda and Robinson all fecking game and getting away with it, so nice consistency by McLean.

Badly missing Dykes and Pittman, but we should still be 100 times better than that pish today. Sorry for the war and peace length post, just really fecked off at that performance today.

Bertie Bassett wrote:This is what frustrates me, we get plaudits for playing well & failing against the better sides & then play poorly against the so called wee teams. We have a tendency to play to the level of the opposition instead of playing to the level we are capable of.

Couldn’t go today but very surprised & disappointed by the result.

Tbf we've beaten Ross County and St Mirren, and should've beaten St Johnstone too after playing them off the pitch in the first half, and even getting a pen in injury time, but we were absolute dross today, and if we played like that against those three teams we'd have lost to all of them. I can take losing when we create chances, Aberdeen and Sevco, still annoying not to score from them but today we created sod all and could've played that 2nd half till 9 o clock tonight and not scored. That is just not good enough.

Even when we had the ball inside the 18 yard box and had a half chance to shoot at goal we passed it up and pissed around till an Accies player got a tackle in, so fecking frustrating and soul destroying watching that today. Was even lamenting not having Menga and his headless chicken runs, because he would at least have driven at them and caused chaos, nobody in a Livi shirt wanted to just take the ball and drive forward with it to open them up.
Actually I thought two of our best players were subs, Tiffoney and Sibbald, both tried to make things happen, and did more in their brief spell on the pitch than the 2 they replaced, Stobbs and Souda.

That proves my point though... we played those teams before we played the “big” teams & then we play those “big” teams off the park for no reward & next game against a team we should beat if we maintain the level of performance but our performance drops to the level of the opposition.

Didn't drop against Aberdeen after giving Sevco a game at Ibrox though, we played Aberdeen off the park most of the game and missed a host of chances. That game was just down to us being shite in front of goal, but today we were shite all over the pitch.

Saying that we shouldn't be conceding a goal so near to HT, that has happened to us a few times already this season, the tannoy guy was just announcing 2 mins injury time to be played when they stuck it in our net, get to HT a goal up and we prob take all 3 points. Cause as bad as we were, Accies weren't any better.

Cannae wait to see what that penalty was given for. Admittedly we were at the other end of the pitch but what my biased eyes thought they saw was a high ball into the box and Stewart punching it out. The player that went down was the giant, built like a tank number 99 who had been fouling Bartley all game. James McFadden said it was soft. If it was then two Saturdays in a row we are hard done by.

Liviforever wrote:Didn't drop against Aberdeen after giving Sevco a game at Ibrox though, we played Aberdeen off the park most of the game and missed a host of chances. That game was just down to us being shite in front of goal, but today we were shite all over the pitch.

Saying that we shouldn't be conceding a goal so near to HT, that has happened to us a few times already this season, the tannoy guy was just announcing 2 mins injury time to be played when they stuck it in our net, get to HT a goal up and we prob take all 3 points. Cause as bad as we were, Accies weren't any better.

But Aberdeen are, despite not playing that well so far this season, an established top 4 side, so we wouldn’t drop our level of performance against them, that still validates my point.

Not just close to HT also conceding in the last 10 minutes... this is happening more often after we had gotten to grips with managing a game out.

Saw the highlights on YouTube and think a penalty, I had thought Stewart had got the ball (Had the Amber glasses on) but I Ogkmpoe defiantly got his head to the ball and Stewart's challenge for the ball took out Ogkomoe. Penalty. Possibly a poor decision from Stewart to go for it as their were enough Livi players back to defend any header he had won.
Overall don't think we deserved to lose a draw would have been a fir result and the game on another day Livi would have taken all three point. We do seem a bit shot shy at the moment, I hear Gary talking about being more clinical in front of goal and wonder if that is the reason we are waiting for that clearer chance
If we play like that next Sunday we could be onto a hiding at home. Hopefully have Dykes and Pittman back as I think they are both missed. We really need to get another Centre forward in.

Nope I can't see that as a penalty. It's a coming together of two players going for a high ball. I've looked at it a few times and there's no reason the Hamilton player couldn't have landed on his feet. He swung his body so he'd fall. He played for it and got it. Two soft penalties against us on successive weeks.

Once again,ive been saying it for ages that we need another striker in but to no avail.So dissapointed with yesterdays result and another gilt edge chance gone after such a good start.Same old story im afraid ,plenty of chances espeicelly in the second half but none taken.Dykes was a massive loss to us yesterday and i just its not to serious an injury.Will have to see the penalty award back but not sure what Stewart was doing in trying to clear the high ball.Frustrating that we are gifting teams points and could hurt us as the season goes on,the defensive lapse for their first goal being a prime example.Hopefully we will get our influential players back becuase we are going to need them unless we want to halt an inevitable drop down the table.Not looking forward to next week but you just never know with Livi.We move on.

Bertie Bassett wrote:

Liviforever wrote:Didn't drop against Aberdeen after giving Sevco a game at Ibrox though, we played Aberdeen off the park most of the game and missed a host of chances. That game was just down to us being shite in front of goal, but today we were shite all over the pitch.

Saying that we shouldn't be conceding a goal so near to HT, that has happened to us a few times already this season, the tannoy guy was just announcing 2 mins injury time to be played when they stuck it in our net, get to HT a goal up and we prob take all 3 points. Cause as bad as we were, Accies weren't any better.

But Aberdeen are, despite not playing that well so far this season, an established top 4 side, so we wouldn’t drop our level of performance against them, that still validates my point.

Not just close to HT also conceding in the last 10 minutes... this is happening more often after we had gotten to grips with managing a game out.

And Accies are an established top flight team, still don't think that's why we were pish yesterday. We didn't drop our performance to their level, we were just really, really poor all over the pitch and had no drive to get forward and create chances. We've played lower league teams and didn't look as badl as that, usually we have at least one good half before we drop off a bit, yesterday we had 2 bad halves, and didn't get started enough to drop off.

Accies weren't great but they showed more purpose than us, got the ball down the wings, played long diagonal balls to their winger, and took players on to get past them, we did none of that. Closest we came after scoring from a set piece, was a header just past the post from another set piece, and Stobbs taking a pot show come cross (not sure which one he intended) that went just over the bar and had the keeper caught off guard. We didn't try any shots from distance any other time so it was prob intended as a cross.

Everything down the wings was played in front of Souda or Stobbs, not until Tiffoney came on did we ever try and run past a player to get down the wings, it was all played short and safe. Read Devlin is meant to be really quick, I've yet to see it.

Not surprised Aberdeen got a right doing from Sevco yesterday either, we ripped them apart enough times to pump them 5-0 too, but Sevco are far more clinical than us. As they should be the money they've spent on players.

It's a missed opportunity to open up a six points gap on Accies, and St Mirren, but at least St Mirren only drew and St Johnstone are still 5 points below us. Next week St Mirren have Motherwell so I don't see them winning 3 points there, St Johnstone v County could go either way though, hopefully a draw. So after Celtic on Sunday we desperately need to start getting more points on the board.

Killie away will be tough but still winnable, and Heart & Hibs are def games we can win. I see Halkett got a bad injury against St Mirren too and will be out for a few months, which will make them even worse than they've been, he's got them out of the mire a few times this season scoring goals from set pieces, and as well as being a cracking defender he drives forward with the ball to set up good attacks, so he'll be a huge miss to them.

Liviforever wrote:

Bertie Bassett wrote:

Liviforever wrote:Didn't drop against Aberdeen after giving Sevco a game at Ibrox though, we played Aberdeen off the park most of the game and missed a host of chances. That game was just down to us being shite in front of goal, but today we were shite all over the pitch.

Saying that we shouldn't be conceding a goal so near to HT, that has happened to us a few times already this season, the tannoy guy was just announcing 2 mins injury time to be played when they stuck it in our net, get to HT a goal up and we prob take all 3 points. Cause as bad as we were, Accies weren't any better.

But Aberdeen are, despite not playing that well so far this season, an established top 4 side, so we wouldn’t drop our level of performance against them, that still validates my point.

Not just close to HT also conceding in the last 10 minutes... this is happening more often after we had gotten to grips with managing a game out.

And Accies are an established top flight team.....
We didn't drop our performance to their level, we were just really, really poor all over the pitch

But they are a poor side, surviving each season because there is someone just a wee bit worse.
Yes we played poorer sides earlier in the season & if you remember, we were fairly poor against them... Falkirk, we didn’t set about them enough, lost a late goal & had to rely on pens. Sneaked past Ayr. Stranraer, we struggled to beat them by a single goal. Berwick we won comfortably but nowhere near as comfortably as it should have been. Forfar, we were pretty poor. St Johnstone, we cruised into a 2 goal lead & then let them back into a game we should have won comfortably from that 2 goal lead. St Mirren, we won but nearly threw away the win again. Ross County we were outstanding for 40 mins & almost let them back into it until the Stobbs wondergoal & the more I see of him the more I see that 9 times out of 10 his shot would have ended up in the stands.

Our best performances have come in those 3 defeats to Rangers & Aberdeen. Then our performance against Accies stinks the place up.

I say again, we are guilty of playing to the level of the opposition.

More concerning though is the inability to manage the leads we take. I would think we could be the team who have lost most points from a winning position so far this season.

Having now watched Sportscene it only confirms to me the inconsistency among our referees. Celtic had two clear penalties not given yet Steven McLean imagined enough of an infringement to award a penalty to Hamilton. I'm pleased that Michael Stewart and Steven Thompson were able to confirm from the footage that he was mistaken.
I'm less pleased that we seem to be on the wrong side of refereeing decisions nearly every week.

Still disagree with you Bertie, I've not seen us as poorly as yesterday's game against Accies, in every other game we've created chances and had at least one decent half, not Yesterday. I'd also say our best performance was against County, where our finishing was good enough to score 4 goals, and could even have been more.

orco wrote:Having now watched Sportscene it only confirms to me the inconsistency among our referees. Celtic had two clear penalties not given yet Steven McLean imagined enough of an infringement to award a penalty to Hamilton.    I'm pleased that Michael Stewart and Steven Thompson were able to confirm from the footage that he was mistaken.
I'm less pleased that we seem to be on the wrong side of refereeing decisions nearly every week.

Wasn't going to watch Sportscene but will do so now just to see that pen decision. At least the one against Aberdeen didn't effect the result, in that we were beaten regardless, still annoying that we're on the end of these decisions though. And even in the Sevco match their first goal was offside, and we didn't get to see out disallowed goal to get it analysed. Plus Dykes sending off was debatable. That's a hell of a lot refereeing decisions wrongfully going against us, if that was Sevco or Celtic there would be an outrage against those referees.

Just watched it, yep, wasn't a pen, but also agree with Michael Stewart, he shouldn't have come for it either. First Accies goal just confirmed what I saw at the game, terrible defending and left 2 Accies players unmarked for a tap in.

I remember thinking to myself at the time in regards Souda's stepovers, at times I wish he'd just be quicker in getting the ball across, by the time he does a couple of stepovers and shimmies, Accies got a man back to tackle him and another covered his cross, just hit the ball when he had the chance with the space in front of him.