Raith v Livi

Good time to be playing Raith, both strikers out injured, and Byrne serving a suspension. Easton is still a threat for them, but without a recognized striker they're a bit limited for getting goals. Provided we don't concede another pen we should win this.

8pts from 4 games would be respectable, and keeps us ticking along nicely, drop any more pts to a draw, or worse a defeat, and it wont look good at all. Hope on hope we start Muirhead, May, and Green/Lawal, and have a go at them from the start, need to be getting more than one goal too, to make sure we take all 3pts.

Odds are so heavily stacked against Raith that there can only possibly be one outcome. A home win.

Go on Livi, prove me wrong.

Might see Prior playing on Saturday if the rumours about Shamal to Wycombe are true.

So Shamal gone,confirmed. Good luck to him.Ive my reservations on Prior having only seen him once.Apparently were getting Liverpools 4th choice goalie on loan for the season.Hopefully decent.On tomorrow's game ,as L/F says the odds if true seem stacked against Raith.Im not buying into that.I believe we'll get a result here but wouldn't put my house on it.Wel need to up our game to take all 3 points in this one imo.As usual Davies starting 11 will come under debatable scrutiny.A win will keep us in touch with those above us.Anything else and its back to the drawing board and falling further behind.Cmon Livi.Just do it..

Wasn't there but from what i've read it wasn't the best we've played, but we got a late goal and came away with 3pts, so woohoo.

Ayr dropping pts to a pish poor Pars shows you can't take anything for granted going into a game against a shite team, you have to earn wins.

Falkirk still with a perfect record, but we're on their coat tails, still feels like we're not starting our best XI, with Green not getting starts, or a game todays, same with Sole, and Muirhead getting sub appearances, which is frustrating. Goals are a premium for us just now, and it isn't difficult to see why.

We pretty much stole that today, we’ll take it though since it happened against us numerous times last season. We carried virtually no attacking threat, any players that were capable of beating a man were left on the bench. Yengi was dreadful, although firing long balls in his general direction quite clearly doesn’t suit him. May ran himself into the ground with little service. Prior looks a real find in goals though, a safe pair of hands and decent distribution if albeit a little slow. It was a scrappy game that had 0-0 written all over it but a decent strike from Brandon allied with some poor goalkeeping keeps us in touch with the leaders.

Well summed up Denman, pretty much my assessment of the game. Prior’s distribution deteriorated as the game went on.

What I would add is this…
We don’t play to May’s strengths as Martindale is trying to turn him into a target man. Yengi is also used as a target man even when he’s on the wing and that isn’t playing to his strengths either. Muirhead gave May more service than anyone else when he came on with two chipped passes that caused Raith problems. McAlear looked like he was coming on, then it was Sole and then it was McAlear that eventually did come on. We still don’t have an out ball at corners and we persist with the idiocy of a defender taking a goal kick short to the keeper. I saw it during the Euros and thought it was pointless, I didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to start doing it. We persist in signing wingers and not playing them. Then we play Shinnie on the wing… I like Shinnie because he usually plays well but he is never a winger. When we brought McAlear on it was clear Davie was settling for a point, thankfully Brandon scored to send us home happy.

The lads got a decent reception from the fans despite a poor performance. McGowan had his worst game but Nottingham seems to have confidence playing beside him. Finlayson is too slow getting forward. Clark is better at it but needs a real winger in front of him. Totally agree with LF on Green, Sole & Muirhead but it will never happen with Wee Davie in charge, it’s far too attack minded.

Davie spent most of the match moaning at the players, rubbing his face and generally exhibiting an angry negative body language. He needs to give himself a shake and start thinking more positively & attack minded.

Just back.Traffic a frigging nightmare. Let's get this right.We don't do 90th winners.Raith deserved a point out of that.But dare I say never say die from a Livi team thats been missing for so long keeps us on course to upset the applecart that is Ayr and Falkirk. Not sure if a pattern is emerging here.One or two results might suggest otherwise Incidently just left Witherspoons up in the Centre.Their beer is Rank.Avoid.

I felt sorry for May because he was a one man press at times and it was just wasted energy. Yengi is not suited to out wide, firing diagonals at him just resulted in the ball bouncing ten yards back the way off his chest. To me he’s best as a no 9 who can drop deep to pick up balls to feet and get running through the middle. The lack of attacking threat in the side is worrying, why sign three wingers in the summer and barely play them? It was said Green wasn’t getting game time because he wasn’t fit but he’s been with us for over two months now so there’s obviously more to it than that. As for Lawal, does Davie just not play players that try to beat their man and get moving forward? This is a league where we need to win games but it’s the same negative tactics as last season.

If Green needs to bring his match fitness up before getting starts then fair enough, but not playing him at all isn't helping. He did however play in a reserve game, and score, as did Muirhead, but again didn't feature today. It's just so frustrating, because i've not seen a single Livi fan disagree that Green has been a stand out whenever we've seen him play.

Same with Lawal, he brings energy to the place, both on the pitch and in the stands, the fans all cheered him on everytime he was on the ball, he was infectious in his positive play.

Sole took a sore one against Dunfermline in our league opener, and was getting late sub appearances to bring him back gently, but again, it has been over a month since that first game, just how much longer do we have to wait before Sole is deemed fit to start games.

There is a good core group of players in our squad, but we're not playing them, if we did i reckon we'd be in with a chance of winning the league, only problem is Martindale's reluctance of setting us up to skoosh games comfortably, by blowing teams away, he's far too tentative, holding back.

Here's a thought, we play Spartans in the mickey mouse lower league cup, that no one gives a monkey's about till they get to the final, so why not just set us up gungho to go out and batter them, we've struggled in 2 games to even score against them, it would be a good test with zero negatives, we win comfortably and it shows how well we can play with an attacking set up, we lose and who gives a feck, and we can go back to whatever we were doing before in our next league game.

Davie is obsessed with grinding teams down rather than blowing them away. Next week’s selection v Spartans will be interesting, surely that’s the time to give the fringe players a runout and a chance to show what they can do as well as getting their fitness up.

It’s the same every time we sign a winger… the winger says he’s delighted to be here because the manager has said they will be playing an attacking game that suits him. Then the winger gets a game, scores or assists or both and it’s back to the bench.

Frankly I’m fed up with it, I’m fed up with the lack of urgency on the ball, I’m fed up with the lack of an outball, I’m fed up with the idiocy of defenders taking short goal kicks to the keeper, I’m fed up with wingers and other creative players being wasted on the bench, I’m fed up with the lone striker spending his time pressing defenders rather than having shots at goal, most of all I’m fed up with Davie’s tired rhetoric about how the team is performing whether pre-match or post-match, don’t tell us they weren’t told to play the way they played, if that IS the problem then you’ve lost the dressing room, so fix it or get someone that can. Not heard from him about yesterday yet* but it won’t be too different from others with the exception that we won. Oh… and I’m fed up with Davie thinking he’s Pep Guardiola.

Yesterday was a great 3 points but a pretty poor performance overall. There were some good passages of play but not enough. The main positive apart from the win itself was that it was a win playing poorly, which is potentially the sign of a decent side.

*it’s now Monday morning and still no post match comments from the management. I know I just whinged about the same old rhetoric but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it.

Auld Nick wrote:It’s the same every time we sign a winger… the winger says he’s delighted to be here because the manager has said they will be playing an attacking game that suits him. Then the winger gets a game, scores or assists or both and it’s back to the bench.

Frankly I’m fed up with it, I’m fed up with the lack of urgency on the ball, I’m fed up with the lack of an outball, I’m fed up with the idiocy of defenders taking short goal kicks to the keeper, I’m fed up with wingers and other creative players being wasted on the bench, I’m fed up with the lone striker spending his time pressing defenders rather than having shots at goal, most of all I’m fed up with Davie’s tired rhetoric about how the team is performing whether pre-match or post-match, don’t tell us they weren’t told to play the way they played, if that IS the problem then you’ve lost the dressing room, so fix it or get someone that can. Not heard from him about yesterday yet* but it won’t be too different from others with the exception that we won. Oh… and I’m fed up with Davie thinking he’s Pep Guardiola.

Yesterday was a great 3 points but a pretty poor performance overall. There were some good passages of play but not enough. The main positive apart from the win itself was that it was a win playing poorly, which is potentially the sign of a decent side.

*it’s now Monday morning and still no post match comments from the management. I know I just whinged about the same old rhetoric but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it.

There was post match vids up from Prior and Martindale on Saturday, need to search through the Livi twitter feed on the OS and see it, in amongst tons of other stuff. Go back to the match updates onward and you'll find it. There are a few different vids on the highlights now too, one of the main highlights, a shortened version showing the goal and fans celebrations, then players going over to the fans, and a pitchside view one. Oh and a 4 seconds clip of some Livi fans crouching down to the go pro camera behind the goals celebrating our win.

Dunno if you'll need to have twitter to see this, but that's Martindale's post match interview. https://twitter.com/i/status/1829985265664082195

They usually have it on YouTube with the highlights. Saw the Prior video there.

Fair play, he didn’t bring out the same old tropes this time.

I do like his analysis of games when he is fair minded about the team it’s when he keeps saying things like “they didn’t do what we asked them” that it gets me whinging about it. That’s when he should accept the blame.

Aye he gives a fair assessment of how we and our opponent played, and is honest about whether we deserved it, were fortunate to get the win etc. Where we differ, is him thinking last week's performance is what we're looking for, taking last week's performance and this week's result. It isn't, it was good in spells, but overall there is a lot needs improving, and players we need to be starting that either didn't start, or remained on the bench all game.

If we're hoping to finish above Falkirk & Ayr, or even Partick & Raith (once they get their acts together), we'll need to up our game a good bit. We're middling along, and at the moment need to up our game to catch Ayr and Falkirk, we've still to play both right enough, so we'll see where we are after that (though the Falkirk game is called off due to them being in the cup still).

Ryan McGowan was on the Open Goal podcast today telling how Davie was going mental at Yengi at half time on Saturday but the big man didn’t have a clue what he was saying!

McGowan may have been trying to be funny but if that is true (and judging by his demeanour on the sidelines at times it may well be) then he needs to modify how he communicates.

Yeah Yengi being Australian might not be able to understand a Scottish accent when being shouted at, and McGowan found it funny.

Yengi does frustrate the life out of you watching his first touch go several feet away, and the amount of times he loses the ball when trying to shield it, but the tactics don't help either, i mean i'm just a fan watching from the stands and i can see quite clearly the best way to play the ball to him, and that lumping it high to Yengi, playing him as a target man wont get us much change.

Yengi isn't a combative No9 like Dykes, who'd see the high ball and jump towards the incoming defender, or rough him up a bit jostling for the ball, Yengi just stands still waiting for it and gets a push on the back. We need to play it in front of him to run with the ball facing opposition players, that's where he's at his best. But to do that we'd need to play it up the pitch, with pace and movement.

Absolutely, which doesn’t seem to be the game plan.

When Yengi signed for us I watched a highlight reel on YouTube and his whole game was dropping deep, taking the ball to feet and running through the middle at the defence. We invariably stick him out on a wing and punt long balls in his direction. It wouldn’t surprise me if he wanted out sooner rather than later, the game we play just isn’t suited to him.

I haven’t seen the highlight reel you mention but it’s been pretty obvious to me that playing him as a target man, whether through the middle or out wide is a wasted ball. Get the ball to his feet with him facing the goal we are trying to attack and he can cause problems. He’s a trier so will give it a go in any role but Martindale needs to stop trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

Right now, if I’m Sole, Korboa, Winter, Green and to a lesser extent Muirhead then I’m wondering why he wanted to sign me.

Auld Nick wrote:I haven’t seen the highlight reel you mention but it’s been pretty obvious to me that playing him as a target man, whether through the middle or out wide is a wasted ball. Get the ball to his feet with him facing the goal we are trying to attack and he can cause problems. He’s a trier so will give it a go in any role but Martindale needs to stop trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

Right now, if I’m Sole, Korboa, Winter, Green and to a lesser extent Muirhead then I’m wondering why he wanted to sign me.

Yeah because of his size, it looks a bit ungainly when he runs with the ball, but because it's chaotic, he gets past opposition players and causes problems. Haven't seen any of his highlights on youtube where he gets played as a target man for long balls though, because he's just not good at it. So it's a bit silly trying to get him to play like that.