Hearts v Livi

Can see we're all excited for this game.

Heading through to this with no expectation of getting anything, i'll enjoy the pre match hospitality that Edin offers and if we take a point or three it'll be a lovely bonus.

At least it will distract from all the off field shenanigans of late,until it resurfaces again.ie,managers situation, court cases etc etc.Likewise I'm expecting absolutely he haw from this.Hearts are streets ahead of us players wise and coupled with our dreadfull recent form I see no other outcome than a comfortable home win here.Its frustrating,but got to be honest here,we're just not good enough.Too many players underperforming and I suspect that will continue tonight sadly..

The defeat at Ibrox was a right kick in the nuts for them, equaliser on 90 mins and winner deep into VAR time, hoping they're still deflated going into our game, and we can get an early goal to get the crowd on their back. Aye, not very likely, i'm grasping at straws for something, big Nouble doing an Edinburgh double away from home and having another blinder helping us beat Hearts.

Like against Hibs, i doubt Hearts will have him marked as tight as he has been in recent games against the so called smaller clubs we've played. They'll be playing to attack us in numbers and give us a doing, which should leave more space for Noubs in their half. Also ideal for Dan MacKay's pace to counter on them. Whether our defence can get a bit more solid defending set pieces is another matter.

Just seen the starting 11..FFS,Hearts could have a field day here.God help us.‍�.

Kept an eye on the Sky Sports app tonight, visiting our first grandson. Saw we had two shots at goal in the early part of the game and thought “Well that’s an improvement on Saturday” kept checking and saw that we didn’t manage to get another shot away all game.

This is simply unacceptable. Other results tonight whacked in another nail. Mark my words, we are going to be relegated and it won’t be through the play offs. Martindale is failing to get a tune out the players and the players are underperforming. It’s been a long time since we could say that about a Livi side.

Didn’t expect anything tonight but a bit of attacking play wouldn’t go amiss but 2 shots at goal in 100 mins as it turned out… neither of which were on target… simply unacceptable. Something needs to change and it needs to change quickly. Getting back to fighting for every ball would be a step in the right direction.

Heard someone on another forum describe last night as turgid and depressing.Kinda sums it up for me.Once again not one shot on target tells its own story.The team seems devoid of any kind of attacking threat and tactically nieve.Wasnt expecting anything from that game,and once again was proved right.Thought young Hamilton did well to keep us in it,but you just knew what was coming.Looking at the league table,yeh there's not a lot between teams.But I genuinely feel we're in danger soon of getting ourselves in an unwanted position which could inevitably leave us in an untenable situation unless things change and soon.Really can't see where our next win is coming from.Just don't want to relinquish our Premiership place with a whimper.So dissapointing. .

Stats don't tell you everything, balls across the box etc don't count in their stats.

Anyway, obv game plan was to get a draw, keeping a clean sheet, we set this up like playing Celtic away, giving Hearts all the possession they wanted in their own half, pressing them once they came into our half.
Thought Welch-Hayes played well, didn't get to see what he could do in an attacking WB role though as it was all defensive work, Hamilton had a solid game too, produced 2 cracking saves and took everything well into his body collecting simple saves, good kicking too, don't think he could do much about the goal.
Nouble was largely a passenger, but did make 2 runs and got fouled resulting in yellow cards for Hearts players, if he could do that more often when he has better support from attacking mids we'd have the old Nouble back.

It was brutal to watch but acceptable if it worked and we got the draw, unfortunately they scored and that acceptance went out the window and the fans suddenly got frustrated being a goal down seeing us continue playing like that. We did throw attacking players on later and actually started playing some attacking football, just wish Martindale had been braver and did that around the 65th minute when Hearts were frustrated at still being goalless, i think we would've had a chance winning the game. Nouble just missed a ball across the box by a few inches, but it was all a bit too little too late.

Fans will no doubt be pissed off with how we set up and played, it wasn't great to watch, think we need to be more attacking away to Dundee, because Sevco at home and St Mirren away is a daunting task to take pts, and if we're pointless in Nov the grumpy fans will be calling for Martindale's sacking, a win against Dundee would take the pressure off.

Personally i'd wait till December to see where a better run of fixtures will take us, 4 home games against teams like ourselves, all in the bunch from 5th to 12th. County and St Johnstone at home are massive, need to be winning both of those.

We just had an eminently winnable home game against a very poor Dundee and look how that ended. We are currently a shambles of a team and a pale shadow of the Livi we were just a couple of seasons ago. Personnel changes don’t help but the guys who are still here providing a semblance of continuity are not performing & the manager who has been at the club through it all in various guises now seems unable to do anything about it.

Since our arrival back in the top flight the club has consistently proved my negativity wrong, I want to see them do that again but I honestly don’t think they will.

A brutal watch. That kind of defensive play has only worked once in the last few seasons. That was the game at Celtic Park when Obileye got sent off late on and Celtic missed a penalty. The football Gods were with us that day. And that's really how that works. If your luck is in and your goalie is acrobatic you might get some points but that is what it needs. I thought we might have got away with it late on last night but it was not to be.
I know we don't have the resources and the big crowd egging us on but hate watching that kind of football. I'm consoling myself with the fact that our goal difference didn't take another hit.

Auld Nick wrote:We just had an eminently winnable home game against a very poor Dundee and look how that ended. We are currently a shambles of a team and a pale shadow of the Livi we were just a couple of seasons ago. Personnel changes don’t help but the guys who are still here providing a semblance of continuity are not performing & the manager who has been at the club through it all in various guises now seems unable to do anything about it.

Since our arrival back in the top flight the club has consistently proved my negativity wrong, I want to see them do that again but I honestly don’t think they will.

I still think we should wait till Dec fixtures are played before making any judgement on our hopes for the season. Montano will be back by then too, we really could've done with his surging runs against Hearts, when we're defending like that he can make all the difference.

His surging runs flatter to deceive, they usually end up producing a damp squib outcome.

Nope, the only light I see at the end of the tunnel is an express train heading straight for us.

Sorry to be even more negative than usual but it’s been dismal all season with the odd decent result giving us false optimism.