Livi v Motherwell (Game of the Season)

Biggest game of the season for us, a win keeps our season alive (providing County* & Hibs don't win too), and we can look forward to pushing for 5th place or even 4th, to get a European spot. Not even going to talk about what could happen if we lose, i'll leave that for post match chatter, i'm staying positive and booting those negative vibes into row Z.

*A few permutations here, think we can even get 6th if County win, as long as we win too and score 1 more goal than them, we're both on -8 goals, then i think it goes to who has scored the most goals, which is County.

Anyway, absolutely buzzing for this game, can't wait for Saturday, Mon the Lions, lets do this.

I am more philosophical about this one. St Johnstone games ,especially the ones in Perth, suck the life from me and Saturday's result had me almost comatose We need to keep van Veen quiet though.
If we lose then we don't deserve a top six spot and I think if we win we will do it.
Right, having said that what's the bet it will be a draw. That would be the Livi way.  

Just can’t see where our goals are going to come from.

So many permutations here its mind boggling.Broken record time again.No Anderson, no win.Tottally agree with the lack of firepower up front comments.Well had a great result last week which will fill them with confidence coming here,and who can blame them.Its last chance saloon for us as per the top six is concerned. My gut feeling is that we will come up just short on this occasion unfortunately. Having said all that,we're at home and I would be pleasantly shocked if we actually did it.Big crowd,I really hope we have a real go and not fail with a whimper for the many newbies in attendance. Il be there regardless and hope to be celebrating after one way or another. Come on Livi,one last push..

Should be a decent crowd for this, 3,500-4,000 Livi fans and 1,000 or so Motherwell fans, Hopefully the weather is as nice as today's too, and making it a lovely day for everyone to watch the footie.

Soto had a decent shot on target against St Johnstone, we should be able to get a bit more service to him at home to see what he can do tomorrow, and Pitts is always a threat if we can get balls into the 6 yard box for him to run onto. Vital we don't concede a silly early goal again, and derail our game plan, then i think we will get the win.

2-0 or 2-1 Livi.

I like Kenny Miller's predictions, Amy Irons was ok till she got to Livi's, then she went completely wrong.

Need a swally to calm the nerves.Its in our hands.Worry about the permutations later..

Well it’s not entirely in our hands - we need to win and rely on results elsewhere going our way

Having seen the starting line up.Forget top 6.Safety first the priority. Grim.But what do I know.Prove me me wrong Livi.‍�.

I could greet.

Bricking it now for the remaining games.

We didn’t deserve to have that happen. We outplayed them from the first minute to the 70th - then they get a goal out of nothing & a flukey equaliser in stoppage time. That said when Motherwell scored their first, I feared the worst…and to add insult to injury it was Lamie who broke our hearts.

So bottom 6 it is - with Hibs, Aberdeen, St Mirren, St Johnstone & Dundee… hopefully we have enough points in the bag already - Celtic whipping St J today destroys their GD to the extent it is effectively an extra point.

Our fixtures should be home games against Hibs, St J & Dundee with away games at Aberdeen & St M

But who know the secret of the League computer?

Christ,where do I start.Absolutly abysmal the way we succumbed to be honest a poor Well team.2 0 up wit about 15 mins to go.Trying to compose myself,but like all Livi fans absolutely distraught after that..When I saw the starting 11 I feared the worst.But credit to the lads.They stuck to the game plan until pathetic subs when in the assendcy. Martindale has to take responsibility for that.I wasn't one of those near me who gave Davie grief at the end.For me that was wrong but can understand the frustrations of many around me.Its a huge opportunity lost.The players know it,we know it.Top 6 gone,but was always going to be a big ask Imo.Just have to lift ourselves and consolidate our place in the SPL for next season. One of many angry Livi fans tonight.

Having watched the highlights we were done yet again by poor decisions by the ref & huge slices of luck going the way of the opposition.

At 2-0 Devlin was impeded in the box causing him to be off balance and stumbling until falling over. Ref gave a goal kick. On Sportscene, Chris Iwelumo said it should have been a pen. Michael Stewart said there wasn’t enough contact for a pen but he could understand why Livi fans would claim it… which surely means if he was a Livi fan he’d want a pen.

In the build up to Well’s first goal Mugabi deliberately bumps into Fitz preventing a proper clearance, should have been a foul to us, ball goes wide & the cross bounces off Mugabi’s butt straight to Slattery, good shot by him but the lucky break was the bounce of Mugabi’s butt.

The equaliser comes from more bad luck, a miscued clearance goes for a corner. The initial effort hits the bar and bounces straight onto Lamie’s head and in. Rebound could have gone anywhere but it lands on Lamie’s napper.

We were the better side and deserved to win but bad luck & a couple of poor decisions by the ref conspired against us. We could have defended better for both but when the bounces don’t go your way there is not much you can do.

On Martindale’s substitutions… Lewis did ok going forward but in the second half needed help because he was being left for dead by the player in direct opposition to him. Boyes made some decent clearances. Shinnie used his experience well to get free kicks. Soto wasn’t on long enough to have any influence.

At the end of the day it looks like today was what cost us top 6 but last week’s result was worse & the start we had to season was appallingly bad; losing twice from winning positions in our first two home games was every bit as expensive as today, if we had held on to at least draws in those games we’d have finished with 40 points and Motherwell would have had 38… fine lines.

Kelly has come in for a lot of stick from me, but thought he was excellent yesterday, as was Lewis when he came on for an injured Penrice. Forrest and Bailey linked up really well too, and thought it risky taking them off, you always felt we could get another goal when they were playing, but can see why we made the subs, to hold onto what we had, particularly Boyes helping nullifying their threat down our left wing, almost worked but didn't. Gutter of a result, losing a goal with about 30 seconds to go, and dropping from 6th to 8th, felt deflated leaving the stadium.

We've two weeks to get it out of the system now, and be up for the next game, the season isn't over yet, even though we have little to play for now, another win would prob be more than enough to keep us safe from 11th place.

We have plenty to play for…. We need points to secure top division status, while we should survive we need points to be sure.

I thought Kelly was outstanding, Bailey too did well, Nouble is the most fouled player who never gets the foul given, he is a real selfless team player. Lewis was doing okay but second half was being left for dead & was unfortunately the one who gave away the corner from which they equalised.

We prob only need another 3 pts to secure our place, we'll get a lot more than that.

All we have left is finishing as high as we can, 7th, really don't consider that anything like playing for a European spot.

I don't feel your nerves that we have anything to worry about from St Johnstone getting above us, we'll finish above Hibs and St Mirren too, i'm confident of that, we'll beat both of them in the games left, not so sure or confident about beating or even drawing with Aberdeen, we always struggle against them, think we'll beat Dundee too, and prob draw with St Johnstone, so 10 points coming our way.

I actually thought the ref was ok till Devlin was fouled in the box, and he didn't give us the pen. He is the only ref to see Nouble being fouled and gave him about 3 or 4, firstly letting play go on to see if Nouble could get away from being fouled, then bringing it back for the foul. He still gets fouled more than he gets given, but he's so strong he manages to pass the ball on despite being pulled, barged and kicked, but the refs should still be taking note of persistent fouling on him and start handing out cards.

Agree with regard to the ref, he’d done ok until the pen incident but still could have awarded more fouls to us than he did.

We are, IMO, the best side in the bottom half but that doesn’t always pan out with results. We should have won yesterday but it didn’t pan out that way. We should survive but if we get off to a bad start then the bums will start twitching.

A dagger through my heart in the 92nd minute. Football can be so cruel.

Bad as that was I still felt worse at the end of our game at Dingwall in February. We were 1-0 up and coasting that game. When we got a penalty in the 85th minute and big Ayo stepped up to take it we were all tasting the three points. Instead he missed and and County equalised in the 93rd minute.

For me that, more than yesterday, was the game that did for us. I hasten to add too that we were denied another penalty earlier in that game for a County handball.

Our team has played some really good football but we have been dogged by bad luck and crap referees. The illness and injuries at the start of the season meant we never really got started for the early games. So to have missed out on a top six position by a flukey goal in the second minute of injury time says a lot about how well this team recovered from the shaky start.

Hopefully we are safe for another season. I've looked at the number of points relegated teams got for the last 4/5 seasons and 38 points would have seen them all safe. Four years in the top flight for a team of our size is a remarkable achievement. I was convinced four years ago it would be one then back down so well done Davy and the boys. The aim now has to be best of the rest.

As I said to you on Saturday Orco,we've got to be realistic here.Yeh we blew it big style and have only ourselves to blame.Abeit the decisions throughout against us have been abysmal this season. Having said that,I'd be more disappointed if we're to somehow get dragged into the situation at the bottom.For me the team can more than redeem themselves with a great end to the season.The top six has gone as I suspected we might just fall short.Just annoying the way it happened.But were still in a good position to achieve our goal,which after all is said and done was the objective in the first place.Mon the Lions..

Good attitude and comments from Captain Devlin, particularly the BIB i highlighted at the end.

Devlin said: “It’s a massive opportunity gone. We had the game where we wanted and I felt we were comfortable at 2-0. The second goal’s not acceptable. It’s just shocking. Don’t really know what else I can say.

“We could have killed the game off but we should have been comfortable at 2-0. We’re two goals up at home, we shouldn’t be drawing. The way we lost the second goal was just embarrassing.”

He added: “Set plays are a massive part of the game. Nobody did their job because the ball went in the back of the net. It’s not just one person, everyone could do better. As a team, we’ve just flung it away.

“Our biggest thing now is making sure we stay in the league. If we don’t react to this and other teams win games, we’re going to be in trouble so the way forward for us now is to stay in the division. Now, that’s the only thing we can take out of this season.”

Yeah Orco it was surreal getting promotion, took a few months for me to even get used to/believe we were playing in the Premiership. Wasn't sure we'd be able to stay there our first season, let alone finish comfortably in 9th, then have back to back top 6 finishes. We've turned our finances around because of that promotion, even though we didn't fully benefit from those top 6 finishes due to covid restrictions, and a top 6 this season would've cleared our debt completely, so the longer we can stay here the better off we'll be.