Livi v St Mirren

Will be a tough game, St Mirren & Killie are having a fight for 4th place, and we are fighting to stay up. A win would be massive and set us up nicely for the County away game. Lets build on our cup win and take the 3pts.

Donnellan and Pittman injured on Saturday. Penrice and Montano still out and who knows what other knocks players got on Saturday. I suppose it's up to those who come in to play well and keep their place. St Mirren are playing well. It will be a difficult game but you never know. It's high time the Lady Luck smiled on us. She's been AWOL at Almondvale so far this season.

A win would be massive, I suspect the best we can hope for is a draw.

When we drew 1-1 earlier in the season they were “high flying St Mirren” but the only difference between the teams at the time was that we had lost to Rangers and they had beaten Dundee, the other results were almost identical against the same teams. Since then the results almost couldn’t be more different but they did have a ropey spell where they have fallen well behind Hearts.

We should have won that drawn game but since we changed our style of play from the tried and tested style that got us promoted and into the top 6, our ability to see out games by managing our leads has all but disappeared.

We need to take the good vibes of that last minute winner on Saturday into this game and throw the kitchen sink at them.

On the injuries, we've coped with Montano and Penrice being out, switching Brandon to LB and Nottingham moving to RB, in a back 4. Nottingham has actually been decent playing as a FB, has a bit of pace and gets down the wing well.
Pitts being out wont affect us much either, Carson will come in and partner Holt, and we're well covered up front with St Kelly, Bradley, Nouble, and Shinnie vying for places in attacking midfield. Yengi has looked good the last 2 games too, so he'll prob start with Anderson on the bench to come on as a 2nd half sub.

Donnellan getting injured will be more problematic though, he's looked a good pairing with Obileye, hope we don't put Nottingham back in as a CB, might be Sean Kelly though. Also hope it's Shamal in goals, have no confidence at all in McGovern, he's too slow getting down for low shots.

Think we can win this but it'll be tight and nail biting, think i'll need some pre match lubrication to see me through till FT.

Oh dear.

Means nothing to me… as I’ve said before they are all useless, inept, blind mice

Used to be Greg Aitken was the worst ref we had, with the amount of poor decisions and red cards he dished out to Livi players, but Clancy has taken over from him.

Re refereeing I see that the VAR review mentions Livi games twice and not surprisingly we were on the wrong end of decisions. Ross McCausland (non) penalty and the 3rd Dundee goal a few weeks ago.

orco wrote:Re refereeing I see that the VAR review mentions Livi games twice and not surprisingly we were on the wrong end of decisions. Ross McCausland (non) penalty and the 3rd Dundee goal a few weeks ago.

We canny win, get fecked with VAR, get fecked without it, 2 wrong decisions in the Partick game too, goal chopped off and handball pen.

Looking forward to tomorrow with trepidation. Don't know how the injury situation stands atm.The feelgood factor after last Saturday will hopefully carry on,although i suspect St Mirren won't be as benevolent as Thistle were last week.A sizeable away support should ensure a good atmosphere here,just hope our support turns out in numbers,God knows we'll need them in our hour of need.Has the makings of a decent game.Just hope Livi turn up and make it one for us,though I have those niggling doubts.Just go for it Livi.Mon the Lions..

Nouble saying the formation we're now playing suits him best, so hopefully he carries on his Partick form, and we see him imposing himself in the game tomorrow. There's an excellent player in there when he's in the mood to have a go at opposition defenders, really need to see him running at them and getting himself into the box, causing havoc.

I did say before VAR that we were simply moving incompetence from the pitch to the review room; I think this report shows that comment was accurate.

Just hoping that whatever the result that we will have seen the team try everything they can to get the win.

Injury list is not encouraging on DM’s prematch video.

Hi I'm Paula from Barrow in Furness.
Making my first visit to the Tony Macaroni today. Where is the best place for a pre match drink please?

Hi Paula.At the Stadium. Almondvale Suite or Stadium Bar.Youl be welcome at both.Hope this helps..

Thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to the Tony Macaroni. The 3 points were a bonus. I'm still hopeful that next season my visit will still be to see Premiership football

Well that felt good, only 3pts behind Ross County now.

The irony of today is not lost on me… all season long we have missed chances and missed penalties whilst outplaying opponents only to lose to a sucker punch goal or 2 against the run of play… but today all of that went for us. Now we have the chance to really hold County’s feet to the fire and heep pressure on them… win by 2 next week and we will send them to the bottom.

Auld Nick wrote:The irony of today is not lost on me… all season long we have missed chances and missed penalties whilst outplaying opponents only to lose to a sucker punch goal or 2 against the run of play… but today all of that went for us. Now we have the chance to really hold County’s feet to the fire and heep pressure on them… win by 2 next week and we will send them to the bottom.

Steady.

Absolutely drained after yesterday. Such a tough watch on the eye.Thought it was a batteling performance from the lads.St Mirren are good at what they do and to get past them was definitely a shot in the arm for us.Big Shamal with a crucial save from the penalty.Good to see us finally see out a game and you could see what it meant to Davie and the team at the end.Weve got to go at County next week ,massive game for both.Weve givin ourselves a wee chance to get out of this.Lets just hope they believe that they can take it.On a footnote,what a stain on their club from the wee Saints fannies who squared up to the stewards and security in front of the stadium after the game.Embarresing and totally pathetic.Well done to our security for nipping it in the bud and chasing them away with their tails between their legs.Cretins.I guess losing isn't for everyone . Well done Livi..

St Mirren owed us that yesterday. I've lost count of the games where we have outplayed them but came away without 3 points. We need that kind of rub of the green in our next few matches. We've certainly not had it so far this season.

VAR/Mr Clancy* did his best to scupper us Orco, thankfully Shamal saved their pen though. Think if it goes in, it would've knocked the stuffing out of us, in a here we go again way, and St Mirren would've went on to win the game. Big lift saving the pen and taking the 3pts, feels like things are finally going for us now, and a win next week would take us on a wee run of results.

*i don't think VAR should be getting involved for that pen decision when the onfield decision wasn't to give it, it was the slightest of touches, too soft to make it clear and obvious a wrong decision, same way if it had been given VAR would've went with the onfield decision. Either way VAR should've butted out. It's debatable if the touch from Carson was enough to foul their player, or he felt the touch and bought it.

The lad lay there holding his ankle like he’d been hacked, stamped on and had it physically twisted. Then when the ref didn’t give it he got up and didn’t even limp, cheating wee git.

Kudos to Shamal for the one on one save after Holt’s woeful back pass.

George played well with vital saves. Still flaps a bit at crosses but on the whole he did well.
Brandon had a really good game with some decent defending.
Nottingham & Obileye largely did well, heading clear, blocking shots etc
Sangare did better than I expected at LB
Shinnie did well for the time he was on
Holt has played better and almost shot the team in the foot with that back pass, very noticeably thanked George for his save.
Carson very tidy performance nothing flashy but did simple things well and seems to have fitted in well.
Showed good passion for the win too, unlucky to be penalised for the pen incident. Arguably my MotM.
Kelly was decent had a very good shot that their keeper saved well.
Noobs made a terrific defensive tackle in the second half but didn’t threaten enough up top
Yengi was being held, pulled and illegally block on numerous occasions but pounced to score the vital goal.
Devlin - got the fear when he came on but he didn’t really have much to do
Mackay did ok
Guthrie not enough time to make any real impact but just like Yengi was fouled a lot for no reward

All in all not the greatest performance but they defended like bears and what a treat to get a win.

Aye Shamal got a hand to knock the ball away, Holt then made a lunge and kicked it to stop a shot on goal, then Nottingham headed it off the line to finally clear the danger.

Dunno if it was Holt again, but there was another pass back that almost caught us out again, with a St Mirren player lurking, but Shamal came running out and booted it up the pitch.

Ayo had a great game clearing balls into our box too, headed everything away.

Big Yengi took his chance well, but he also had another one he should've cut back to Kelly on the edge of the 6 yard box, instead he hit it into the side netting. Kelly had a good chance of the 40 yard shot into an open goal, just went past the post. All in all i think we deserved the win, only saw St Mirren with 2 clear chances, plus the pen they shouldn't have got, we defended our box well, and could've had another couple of goals ourselves.

Re that referee (and linesman). I keep thinking about our player - McKay I think - breaking away on his own in the second half being chased by a couple of St Mirren players. My recollection is that he was bundled off the ball illegally with the ref waving play on. Or did I get it wrong? I think it may have been what led to Martindales yellow card.
Then near the end of the game Guthrie with the ball up near the corner flag being niggled by their defender. Linesman raises his flag. Quite right I thought then unbelievably he points for it to be a foul to Saints. Guthrie had the ball for gawd's sake. Aye, they are definitely out to get us! 🤨

Yeah, that’s what I remember too Orco, ridiculous decisions like those have gone against us for years though, so it’s clearly institutionalised prejudice.