Hibs v Livi

Bummer that Nisbet is back playing for them, Boyle out injured is a bonus though.

Nouble and Bahamboula being fresh and raring to go should cause the dodgy Hibs defence problems, lets hope Davie's gamble on leaving them out against Celtic pays off.

I'll go for a tight 2-1 Livi win, Nouble getting our first, and just for giggles and heart palpitations Kelly scoring our second from the penalty spot.

Maybe there was some method to his madness but it’s a tricky game & with Nisbet back I think they will be more likely to score than without him. Boyle’s main threat is pace and inability to stay upright and the two together would be a big worry.

As usual I fear the worst and hope for the best… but I love it when we beat them so come on lads do it for jolly old St Nick (my aka at this time of year)

We saw what they did for 45mins against Sevco before imploding.So the warnings there.Having said that we should be reasonably confident of getting something here after a decent backs against the wall performance against Septic the other night.Hopefully the rested players will come back in and bolster our attacking attributes with we sorely missed the other night.Surely were capable of picking up points here albeit will be a tough ask at ER.Fingers crossed the Lions deliver an early Xmas present for us.Mon the Lions.‍�.

As usual with an away game I will take a draw but hope for a win.

No Nouble, take it he's carrying an injury as Martindale said pre match he thought he'd make it for today's game.

Here we go again FFS.Got to be injured if hes not even making the bench,unless its something else,God forbid.My limited opptomism here has taken a nose dive. Hope I'm wrong.‍�.

What that we're not playing him cause we're selling him in the Jan transfer window?

Anyway, chance for Dylan to shine, he's created just as many problems for defenders that Nouble has in recent games, need Bruce to be sharp and getting in on the goals too.

Bonus is Sean Kelly isn't starting, so if we get a penalty it wont be him taking it.

Davie did say that Joel was going nowhere in January unless???,surely not.‍�.

Troy wrote:Davie did say that Joel was going nowhere in January unless???,surely not.‍�.

If we get a bid of 1M + we'll sell him, wont be to a Scottish team though, the erse cheeks are the only ones that could afford that, and they're too stingy with Scottish players valuations, thinking everyone will just roll over and let them tickle their bellies for cheap prices.

Hope your right mate.

Earlier ko games are going our way, Celtic 3-0 up at HT against St Johnstone, and St Mirren & Abendeen drawing 1-1 HT.

Celtic 4-0 up now, St Mirren 2-1 up against 10 man Aberdeen, could do with the sheep getting an eqialiser, just to keep St Mirren below us, however we can take care of our own business against Hibs and move back up above them.

Holt off.Straight red card for high tackle.Thatl be that then.FFS.

2 0 Hibs.Game over i suspect.Bah Humbug..

Two goals in 90 seconds ends this as a contest, I knew we’d be crap when we restarted after the WC; just like when we restart after the winter break.

Taking off Bahamboula for Longridge to shore up defensively after Holt's red card worked out well then, 3-0 Hibs. And we've effectively fecked any hope we had of taking the game to Hibs with Bahamboula going off, our most creative player on the pitch.

Dear knows what we'll do 2nd half, not a lot of attacking options on the bench to try and get back into the game, can only see us conceding more goals, as we try to sit in deep to see the game out 3-0. Another Aberdeen away when we went down to 10 men there.

Least I can get back to my Xmas wrapping earlier than anticipated as opposed to watching this calamity..

Sometimes Martindale just makes a pig’s ear of his changes. 10 men can always make it difficult, we see it often enough when our opponents go down to 10 men but not us, oh no, we capitulate, we try to play defensively and just let them walk all over us. Neither Hibs nor Aberdeen are particularly good sides but we have shipped at least 9 goals to them when having a player sent off. At Aberdeen it was a defender so we had to make a change there but this time it was Holt, a midfielder, so absolutely no reason to alter our defence, simply draw one of the players playing as a front man back to fill the hole. Stephen Kelly was on the pitch, he could have slotted into Holt’s position.

I was looking forward to our next two home games but now I’m expecting to lose them both.

You just couldn’t write it could you? 2 penalties saved albeit the second one wouldn’t have happened if we’d scored the first one.

What chance have we got when we can’t even get the basics right?

We have absolutely no chance of getting top 6 this season because we are hopelessly inept at the games basics.

Yeh,agree totally Nick.Definatly one to consign to the bin.The sending of turned the game without doubt,but to capitulate the way we did was criminal imo.The two pen misses just about summed up our day.The top six predictions didn't come from me incidentally. I said I'd hoped for 8th place.Il nervously stand by that.Hoping this is our bad patch.But got to get back to winning ways or we could be in danger of getting sucked in here,unfortunately. Massive game on Wednesday against St Midden.Suggest must not lose..

We'll still get top 6, and shoot for 4th or 5th after the split. Other teams in the pack are just as likely to lose games too, we recovered after the Aberdeen debacle, we'll get our shit together again. We're always likely to lose games after a break. We're only 2pts off 3rd place.

Win at home against St Mirren and everything will look rosy again.

We can't score pens for shit though, that's 4 we've missed i can think of this season, Kelly-St Mirren & Hearts, and the 2 today from Goncalves & Fitzwater. Holt & Obileye have missed some too, think there's was last season. Think Martindale has to have them practicing pens, because we're getting plenty with VAR.

Also without George, and now Nouble our last 2 games, hopefully both will be back against St Mirren, Nouble isn't serious but Martindale didn't want to risk him today.

Anyway, have a happy Christmas everyone, see you all for the St Mirren game.

With respect L/F.The pen misses would have been little in the way of comfort on a poor day for us on the whole.Hibs capitalised on errors including the sending off which looked dubious by most accounts. Will need to see that again to make a true comment.But its Jason blood and guts so wouldn't surprise me.Once again weve come up against officials that put the boot in literally. Havent said it on other forums but why can't we put out our strongest team against with respect teams where we've a genuine chance of picking up points. We haven't since before the W C.Yeh,I get rotation against OF.But today was an opportunity lost imo.Sorry for the rant,just how I feel.Wheres the fridge..

What annoys me most is the pre-match blabber that “we have a chance to press further up than we did against Celtic, more chance of getting something from the game” but we can’t even defend properly or raise the effort to make it difficult once we lose a player. Where is the channelling of our indignation when decisions go against us? Where is the battling attitude to adversity?

Just watched the goals on SSN - rank awful defending. Also saw the red card and that was an absolute joke, Holt gets to the ball first, Nisbet arrives late, Holt is already in motion having played the ball and the only reason he makes contact with Nisbet is the fact Nisbet plants his foot where Holt’s momentum is taking him. Ridiculous decision that VAR should have overturned. Our penalty attempts are just horrible.

Really trying to compose myself Nick.The sending off was a ridiculous decision. Did it affect the game,he'll yeh.Even Hibs fans on multiple forums have said it was yellow at best.The follow through despite getting the ball swayed the ref.Hibs took the advantage and rightly so.Our defence collapsed and made it easy for them.Got to gather together and get this out of our system and quick.Otherwise could find ourselves back in the mire.