Scottish Cup 4th Round

Liv 0 Morton 1 FG 36 mins

Dull boring game to be settled by us giving the ball away & them parking the bus

2-0 Morton, fg 22 mins. Pepper will be involved in some way for their first goal, we trip him up every game and get booked for it or give away a penalty.

0-2 and our season over. Unsure whether I'll bother.

FG 30 mins.

Going out the up would not be the end of our season EL; there would still be the relegation dogfight to endure/enjoy depending on how it works out.

Remember how good it felt to win the Petrofac & to stay up on the last day? Felt like we'd done the double & GIRU the "powers that be" as well.

Winning this game could just give us the lift we need to go on a wee run, through to the next round and then a draw at mordor before we gub Falkirk at the Tony Macarena, ok I might have taken that too far there.

Mon the Hoppy barmy army.

Not a fan of Hopkin based on the three games he's presided over, or a fan of the decision given the "hum, haw" attitude the board seemed to take, but for his sake, for the team's sake, and the club's sake I hope we fucking pump Greenock Morton on Saturday.

2-1 Livi, FG 73 mins.

Afro wrote:Not a fan of Hopkin based on the three games he's presided over, or a fan of the decision given the "hum, haw" attitude the board seemed to take, but for his sake, for the team's sake, and the club's sake I hope we fucking pump Greenock Morton on Saturday.

2-1 Livi, FG 73 mins.

Agree with what you say.

I'll also get behind the team on Saturday as I hope those fans who turn up do too. It won't be easy if the game goes the same way as Falkirk and QoS and if it does I'll probably be on here on Saturday night moaning my ass off.

That's the way it is just now with Livi.

And i agree with what you say ffd1.Having said that i reckon the best we can hope for is a replay then knock them out on penalties.Sorry for seeming to be slightly negative on this but im just being honest and realistic.Would be delighted if Livi proved me wrong if only to come on the forum and eat humble pie.Do it Livi.

I'm a bit touch and go whether i'll be well enough to make this game, but starting to look forward to it now, if for no other reason than to see how any of our new signings get on.

Hopefully we can get a goal to give the players some confidence and push on same as we did at St Mirren.

Heavy snow falling in Livi, game will be in doubt if it keeps up.

if this goes ahead i think it would be farcicle.I beleive it wont be down to the club or the referee but the police will make the decision for them on safety grounds.Would like to see the new players but hey ho its winter time after all.Fingers crossed though for another minor miracle.

Pitch inspection apparently happening now

Passed the pitch inspection, still clearing snow though.

Not sure if it's the new players or because it's the cup but I'm feeling a bit optimistic for this one, which probably means we'll lose.

1-1, FG 18 mins

Yeah i'm more optimistic about us winning this now too and was thinking about changing my prediction. Still not convinced Hopkin has it in him to manage the team though so i'll stick with my earlier prediction, last weeks shambles was down to him so he needs to get that sorted before my confidence in his ability will change any.

I'm feeling optimistic for this one. I like the Fozza and Stanton signings and I reckon we'll pull somethng out of the bag. 4-1 to the Amber Machine. FG 7 mins

DJ's 100th appearance today. Let's hope he marks it with a penalty save.

Livi XI - DJ, Gallagher, Gordon, Longridge, Stanton, Fotheringham, Mullen, Pittman, Neill, Sheerin & Buchanan

Livi subs - Quinn, White, Knox, Gibbons, Hippolyte & Currie.

White dropped to the bench, Sheerin is a good strike partner for either *Buchanan or White so not unhappy about our pairing for the game, more interested in seeing the decision Hopkin will make if it isn't working out and needs changed, that's where he was at fault last week.

You can kinda see where the substitutions will be made before the game even starts, Hippo on for Mullen, White on for Buchanan, shouldn't be so
predictable and robotic with his subs, and the time they are made though, needs to adapt to how the game is going.


*Buchanan might have a chance of getting a full game though, don't think Sheerin has been played for 90 mins.

Fotheringham probably our best player and Stanton had a good game too, shame we're awful at getting the ball in the net though.

You got the subs all wrong LF; on the positive side it was a definite improvement on last week.
We created a number of chances but our finishing was not up to scratch & their keeper made a decent save from Buchanan late on that Liam probably didn't get as much on as he would have liked.

Fozzy did well but too many passes went astray however given it was his first game he was fine.
Stanton a few decent moments but didn't have a huge impact; again first game so a decent enough start to build on.

Negatives...

DJ...his confidence is shot to pieces. He is over 6 feet tall & admittedly a bit of a bean pole; but he needs to be commanding his area. Where was he for the goal? In the back of the net before the ball from what I could see. It was a near post corner, the header was in the 6 yard box; he should have been punching it away & clattering the Morton players in the vicinity as he did so.

Defence looks uncertain with DJ behind them.

Mullen...okay he takes players on & wins the odd free kick but more often than not he runs up blind alleys, holds on the ball too long, trips over it, leaves it behind & falls over a lot.

In general we are too slow in the attacking third; not just the speed of the players running but also with the speed of pass or an attempt on goal; the opposition are defending us too easily & when we do get through it comes as such a surprise to the player concerned he invariably (& ironically) rushes his attempt.

In direct contrast; Morton always attacked us quickly, whether they initiated it or it was on the counter attack.

As the old cliché goes we are now free to focus on the league, so hopefully they knuckle down & get some results after the obligatory 3 defeats against the top 3.

Much better performance all round, fought for the ball in midfield, showed signs of a good looking passing team, up till the final 3rd then it went pair shaped but inches away at times from getting in on goal. Some poor decision making by Mullen and Sheerin in the final 3rd too, taking shots when there were players waiting unmarked for a tap in, but still, these are things that can be sorted with playing the same players together more.

Some gilt edged chances passed up too, the header over the bar from a corner, Buchanan getting the ball caught in between his legs from about 3 yards out, just begging for a prod into the goal, just didn't happen for us.

Longridge had a good game, making a lot of good challenges and getting forward well too. Stanton looked good on the ball, tried to get it forward too.  Fozzy made some excellent passes, a few bad ones too but you can see he'll be a big improvement for us in midfield. Mullen looked a lot better on the ball but takes it too far instead of laying it off to someone, still think he's improving though and with the likes of Buchanan playing with him he should learn a lot from him.

I think we needed White on a lot sooner, would even have made the change at HT, wasn't the game for Sheerin, suited White more, the other substitutions didn't add anything to the team though Currie looks a prospect and will take something from the game time. Knox looked like his years, a boy against men, he's not short of confidence but well out of place against players that can easily push him around.

Can't ask for more from the players, they put in an effort so was a good start from the January onwards part of the season, looks a lot more promising than it did last week after the QoS game anyway.

We played a lot better football than last week but I could just not see us putting the ball into the net. Buchanan has been very disappointing in these last 3 games, looks to be short of sharpness or confidence.

A very poor goal to lose. Where were the defenders? where was DJ? They made it far to easy for the Morton scorer to header it over the line.

Well its all about league survival now. Couldn't have picked harder games to follow this. Three out of the next four against The Rangers, Falkirk and Hibs with a game sandwiched in-between against Dumbarton. Hold your nose and guess how many points we'll get from those fixtures.

Gonna be a long hard slog 'till the end of the season.

Better, but not good. Virtually every Morton player looked sharper, quicker and keen to move to get the ball. Fortheringham is a very good addition and will be the heart of the team, Stanton not so much so, but will hopefully develop into a key player.
Desperately need a real striker now if we are to survive.
Mystery of the day: How could Hopkin stand and watch DJ take endless goal kicks up the middle of the park where we didn't even have anyone to challenge without thinking we needed to change something - we could even have tried swapping Neill and Mullen at the goal kicks to give us a chance of a flick on, or at least a challenge before it came straight back at us.

We've 2 strikers that scored 30 odd goals between them last season and are on 16 between them so far this season. They can score goals, the midfield just need to play more games like they did today and provide them with the service to do so. Scoring goals is a confidence thing for strikers too, they haven't had much joy lately feeding off scraps.

Re:Hopkin and goal kicks....Probably because DJ usually kicks it out wide...probably thought it would happen each time and if he had changed it then it would definitely have gone wide. DJ was probably trying to kick it wide, he's not the best at dead ball kicking.