Dundee Utd v Livi

Well here we are, last pre split game, and Orco got her wish for it to be taken to the wire, before we lose out on a top 6 spot.

Think we have to go into it with hope and a prayer, and just taking care of our own business against Utd, then hope and pray Hibs and/or St Mirren lose their games, even a Hibs draw would do us. It would go a long way in ridding us from last season's 2-2 draw with Motherwell if everything just went our way for a change, and great scenes in the Livi end up in Dundee.

I've only been up there twice for  games, our famous 3-2 play off win, which saw brilliant celebrations, coming back from 2-1 down, and our earlier season 1-0 win, so i'm heading up for this one, and quite optimistic we will beat them, esp with Bruce in the starting line up (surely to feck he'll start) .

Anyway, Mon the Livi Lions, lets do this.

Having watched the highlights from Saturday, it wasn’t as good a defensive performance as a clean sheet suggests, Saints missed some gilt edged chances and probably missed easier chances than the ones we scored and our missed chances. So while the players deserve credit for playing well and getting a clean sheet win, they still need to tighten up at the back and sharpen up in attack. I’d forgotten about Boyes excellent goal line clearance until I saw it again.

With all that in mind coupled with United arguably in their best form of the season… this Saturday looks like it could be fraught with frustration for us.

It'll no happen because it is not the Livi way but oh how I would love it if Liv won and Hibs hibsed it with draw at St Johnstone. I cannae stand that girnin' manager of theirs.

I'd also get a perverse sense of pleasure laughing at St Mirren doing what we did last season, and falling at the last hurdle. Doubly so as it would be their first ever top 6. Yeah i know i'm a sick puppy, it would be funny though.

They've had two 0-0 draws against Killie, mon the Killie, and mon St Johnstone.

Bejesus.

Apologies guys for my unfortunate hiatus from the forum recently. Felt I had to come back after todays shambles.I haven't seen very much of football the last couple of weeks due to my circumstances. Having perused through one or two forums this evening, the calls for Martindales head seem nonsensical to me.Yeh,we've lost a great opportunity again on the last day pre split.But deep down among us am I missing a trick here.Going to Tannadice against a resurgent United was always going to be a tough ask.We indeed as per other results had it in our hands but inevitably blew it.So I ask you guys,where are we as a club.Davies been harking on about surviving in the league for another season. Fair play,job done,but as I said earlier the stars aligned with todays results for us to turn up and get the job done.We didn't,unfortunately. Congrats to St Mirren and Hibs,but we handed to yous.Only plus if there is one for me when I get back to the Vale.Wont have to fight for a seat in the Suite for the uninspiring end of the season run in.Will be good to get back.Lol Troy. .

Yeah, we got the favours we needed but couldn’t help ourselves. We had it in our hands after we whipped Killie but we failed to turn up against Caley in the Cup and then disappeared in the league. Too much talk about going for the top 6 and not enough action on the pitch to actually go out and make it happen. And to make matters worse we are only 11 points clear of 11th place with 15 points to be won and probably the club on the worst run of form other than Ross County (and they can still match our points total too) - so despite my earlier comments that we are probably safe, I now have my doubts and I am not looking forward to the post split games… thankfully I will be away to Canada for most of May so will miss most if not all of them.

Acht! We should expect it after following Livi for so long but it's still hard to take.

So bottom six it is. I've done a calculation and come up with these as the games we will play -

Away - Ross County, Kilmarnock, St Johnstone
Home - Motherwell, Dundee United

No easy.

Ross, Killie and Saints are the only 3 teams we have beaten in the last batch of 11 games.

5 draws would do for me but as things stand I don’t fancy our chances in any of them. Where has our fight gone? We go behind and we lose. We go ahead and we struggle to stay ahead. Too many of them seem to have their heads on the golf course.

Summing up, brilliant first half of the season, dropped off after the WC break with 3 wins and a draw in 12 games (incl the cup game), just one more win from that would've got us into the top 6, which is pretty incredible, and shows how well we were doing in that pre WC period. Bottom line is we haven't been good enough to push ourselves over the line, and lost to Aberdeen, Hibs, St Mirren, Motherwell, and Dundee Utd, when a win in any of those games would've done it.

Glad we aren't anywhere near the bottom of the table, because on this form we'd be relegated, but credit where it's due, that's 5 seasons in a row we've comfortably stayed up. However something needs to improve now for us to start winning these pressure games, we're much too soft and it's costing us. Maybe a victim of his own success, having us top 6 twice and just missing out the last 2 seasons, but when he gets us in that position he really needs to find a way to keep us there.

I think if Martindale was at St Mirren he'd be punted on that form, but at Livi, although it's a major scunner chucking away top 6 when we had it in our grasp for those 5 games, it's still a big achievement having us going into our 6th top flight season.

On the game, we were far too passive again, and it had St Johnstone cup final vibes to it once Utd scored, we looked like we were just going through the motions till FT, and nobody could really be arsed trying to score. Nouble was in holiday mode, didn't make runs at all looking for the ball, and only once took the ball from a deep position and went for it, the rest of the time he just cut inside and lobbed high diagonal balls into their box, which were easily mopped up by their CB's.

We're in a bit of a catch 22 situation with Nouble, we want to sell him for some decent dosh, and he prob wont be here next season, so he has to be playing, but he's a waste of a jersey just now.

Personally i'd drop Devlin, Fitzwater, Nouble, Shinnie, and maybe Montano too, and get the likes of Brandon, Bahamboula, Pittman, Penrice, and Sean Kelly playing these final five games. However as i said, we prob can't drop Nouble as we're trying to get a fee for him, so even benching him for the next game might do, to at least give him a break to try and inject some purpose back into him.

Couple of things… technically we should be safe but it’s only 11 points between us 11th and theoretically United and Killie can win 4 of their last 5, Motherwell can easily win 2 of their last 5 and if THAT happens we will be 10th, if St Johnstone were to win 3 we would probably be 11th. This scenario is entirely possible, with us very capable of losing all 5 games; and frankly if this panned out I would not be confident of winning the play off. On the upside, a win and a draw make this scenario impossible.

Next… St Mirren gave Robinson the time to turn it around after he took over from Goodwin, he didn’t win for about 9 or 10 games and look at them now… top 6 for the first time since the split came in to existence, so to suggest they would have punted Martindale by now is perhaps a little presumptuous.

On his status at the club - Bearing in mind the run of games we had after Martindale’s initial confirmation of 15 or 16 unbeaten were followed by a similar number where we didn’t win, the chances of him being punted by Livi are slim; factor in the fact he has been a major driving force in all aspects of the club since his arrival and the chances of him ever being sacked are virtually nonexistent and would probably need a change in ownership for it to happen. Much more likely is him being lured away to a bigger club. The question is, would anyone take him?

I don't think it is presumptuous to think St Mirren would punt a manager who dropped from 4th to 7th losing 8 of their last 12 games, i think it's highly probable. They've spent a lot more than us to try and get there too, the disappointment would be massive for them to bomb like that. He gets away with it at Livi because we haven't the same expectations, not at board level anyway, the fans are a different matter.

The chances of 2 of the bottom 3 winning 4 games is about as much as us getting back into the top 6 this season, one of them may do it but i doubt it, with 4 of the bottom 6 desperately fighting for pts i think they'll cut one another's throats.

I refer you again to Robinson’s horrendous start, Saints fans wanted him out, the board stuck with him.

I’m not saying my nightmare scenario will happen only pointing out it is possible.

Martindale’s jacket is probably on the securest peg in the league.

He needs an experienced number 2 who has the balls to tell him when he's off on one of his overthinking phases. We had Dougie Imrie at one point and Liam Fox at another. Both of these would likely have made their feelings known. And we know that big Marv was never backward at coming forward with his views. Neil Hastings seems a decent guy but he never really made the grade as a player or had experience in management. There are probably some pros ready to retire from playing this season with a view to getting into management. One of them might be more suited to the role.

Defensively… I thought Berra would be a decent appointment but we have been porous at the back since Marv left; Gary Maley is a character but why is he the goalie coach? Why not see if Neil Alexander is interested?

I believe Neil Alexander is doing the goalkeeping coach job at Dunfermline. They are back on the up after a dismal few years and he is likely to see them as a bigger club than Livi.

Auld Nick wrote:I refer you again to Robinson’s horrendous start, Saints fans wanted him out, the board stuck with him.

I’m not saying my nightmare scenario will happen only pointing out it is possible.

Martindale’s jacket is probably on the securest peg in the league.

Yeah but again i'm talking about how drastically we've fallen away, if that was St Mirren i think they'd be questioning his managerial position. They've spent quite big, and if they had been sitting 4th, only needing 1 more win from their nearest rivals, and bottled it against Aberdeen, Hibs, & us, then still had the chance of getting there with a win against Motherwell, but lost, then a final chance against Utd and lost, i seriously doubt he'd still be there. Even St Johnstone punted their double cup winning manager, and there has been about 7 managerial sackings in the top flight this season, clubs haven't a lot of faith in managers turning things around.

Here is Utd and Killies pts totals against the bottom 6 clubs after playing them all 3 times, i'm so confident they both wont win 4 out of 5 games i'll sit in my Livi bawbag pants at our 1st home game next season if they do.
Copy and paste job from P&B's relegation thread.

UTD

Livingston 4

Motherwell 4

St Johnstone 3

Kilmarnock 4

Ross County 4

Killie

Livi 0

Motherwell 5

St Johnstone 4

Dundee Utd 4

Ross County 3

So out of a possible 9pts the best any of them have is 5 pts. As poor as we are just now we've still managed a win at home against St Johnstone, so i think we'll take pts from 2 or 3 teams in home games, not so confident of us getting anything away from home though.

No danger those two will beat 4 out of 5 teams, esp with Motherwell's form picking up, and St Johnstone punting Davidson, everyone is likely to take a few pts off one another.

Lowest we'll finish is 8th, not confident of us staying above Motherwell, even with a 5pts cushion, but we should be able to do it if we don't lose against them, think it'll be a home fixture (we've bottled every head to head with our nearest rivals so far right enough, so wouldn't put money on it).

orco wrote:He needs an experienced number 2 who has the balls to tell him when he's off on one of his overthinking phases. We had Dougie Imrie at one point and Liam Fox at another. Both of these would likely have made their feelings known. And we know that big Marv was never backward at coming forward with his views. Neil Hastings seems a decent guy but he never really made the grade as a player or had experience in management. There are probably some pros ready to retire from playing this season with a view to getting into management. One of them might be more suited to the role.

As long as it isn't John Hughes.

Auld Nick wrote:Defensively… I thought Berra would be a decent appointment but we have been porous at the back since Marv left; Gary Maley is a character but why is he the goalie coach? Why not see if Neil Alexander is interested?

Defensively we've been shockingly bad this season, 52 goals conceded, don't think Berra is doing a very good job. This high line we're doing has got us done far too many times, the indecision leading to Utd's 2nd was pretty basic defending. Think we also need a strong CB signing for next season, a big aggressive guy who will as they say, stick his head in where it hurts, and attack every ball both defensively, and in the opposition box at set pieces. Since Guthrie left we've been seriously lacking in that dept.

IMO we need

A goalie or two
A centre back that is better than the guys already here
A right back as back up (or better) to Brandon
A decent back up/partner to/for Anderson

Liviforever wrote:

As long as it isn't John Hughes.

John Hughes's head is so far up his own bahookie that he'd never accept being number 2 to anyone.

orco wrote:He needs an experienced number 2 who has the balls to tell him when he's off on one of his overthinking phases. We had Dougie Imrie at one point and Liam Fox at another. Both of these would likely have made their feelings known. And we know that big Marv was never backward at coming forward with his views. Neil Hastings seems a decent guy but he never really made the grade as a player or had experience in management. There are probably some pros ready to retire from playing this season with a view to getting into management. One of them might be more suited to the role.

Just read an article about Thomas Courts, could be a decent appointment for Martindale's No2, young guy but has a good bit of experience in a short while, took Utd to 4th place before going abroad to work.

Can't remember him as a player at Livi at all, says he had  5 appearances for us. Anway, as a manager he puts a lot of thought into a game, much like Martindale, and had a very successful season at Utd. He's currently back looking for a job in football, so would prob jump at being an assistant to Martindale, and depending how they worked together may give Davie some help getting us over the line into top 6 again. Would help steady our defence from shipping as many goals anyway, he made Utd hard to score against.

The only problem is with football being so results driven, there is always a high turnover in management, and other jobs will become available during the season, even if he was willing to take a job as an assistant, it wouldn't be long before a manager's job became available at another Premiership club, and Davie doesn't want another Bartley, Imrie situation, leaving Livi during the season, but it's either that or having assistants that aren't as good, it's a drawback you have to live with if you want a decent assistant.

https://worldfootballindex.com/2023/04/thomas-courts-on-dundee-united-working-abroad-and-returning-to-management/

I can remember Thomas Courts as a player. He was very young and was at the club as it was going into the premier League. He'd have been ok in the lower leagues but he was never going to break into that team.