Livi v Alloa

I thought Gallagher was one of the few players making an effort to get the ball through midfield, and he's a CB, ended up coming further forward to try and link up with the strikers. Faria made an effort too but he's just not very good as a play maker, a bit too slow and clumsy on the ball, at least he looked like he was trying. Can't blame the two strikers either with the lack of service they were getting. We were just too disjointed with no link up play to the front and every pass went back the way when we needed it to go forward..

Liviforever wrote:I thought Gallagher was one of the few players making an effort to get the ball through midfield, and he's a CB, ended up coming further forward to try and link up with the strikers. Faria made an effort too but he's just not very good as a play maker, a bit too slow and clumsy on the ball, at least he looked like he was trying. Can't blame the two strikers either with the lack of service they were getting. We were just too disjointed with no link up play to the front and every pass went back the way when we needed it to go forward..

The problem Gallagher had was that he went into midfield to try and play it out and often passed the ball to an opposition player.

At various points in the game, I had a look at the pitch and I saw our back three / four, with two central midfielders in front of them, there was a huge space filled with 4 or 5 Alloa players before you got to the attacking midfielders and strikers.

Alloa filled the gap between the defensive and attacking midfield and we didn't have the creativity to find a way through. Also the Attacking midfielders and strikers weren't making the runs or an effort to fill the gap, same with the defensive midfielders. At times we had no midfield.

You can blame the two strikers, their job is to score goals, when they had the chances, they snatched at them or leant back and the ball sailed over the bar.

They had Andy McNeil in goals and we had Jordan White up front, its an obvious mismatch.

The tactic is simple, get someone out wide, stick a ball down the throat of the keeper, watch McNeil flap under pressure from White and we pick up the scraps.

Other teams did it when we had McNeil in goals, we did it twice on Saturday and nearly scored both times.

The effort wasn't there, the tactics were wrong and we suffered because Big Ben gave them an early Christmas present.

This is a game we have to forget about and get them fired up for next Saturday.

That's because our midfield was posted missing and weren't making themselves available to the defenders trying to play it out from the back, so Gallagher was having to take it up the pitch himself. It was either that or having to just lump it up the pitch past the midfield and let Buchanan and White get hit with a CB coming through them.

As much as Alloa sat in they got up the pitch a lot more than us to get corners, think we only had one corner all game and as you said McNeil is dodgy as feck with a high ball coming into him so was annoying not putting pressure on him with big Shags being so good at pressuring keepers in the air. Even Hippo's long throws were wasted, nobody was going to the front of the 6 yard box to head them back to the danger area, I counted 4 Alloa players in there and not 1 Livi player when he took his throw ins.

Ayone who watched John Hughes's Livi team player in the 4-0 defeat at EEP has as low a comparison benchmark as you will get. That is not to say that Saturday was not poor too.

Sounds like it was an absolute disaster so not too disappointed I couldn't make it.

Hopefully just a one off and we can start picking up points again starting with Dumbarton on Saturday.

orco wrote:Ayone who watched John Hughes's Livi team player in the 4-0 defeat at EEP has as low a comparison benchmark as you will get. That is not to say that Saturday was not poor too.

This.

orco wrote:Ayone who watched John Hughes's Livi team player in the 4-0 defeat at EEP has as low a comparison benchmark as you will get. That is not to say that Saturday was not poor too.

I missed that game; Saturday was the worst I can remember seeing. I've seen some defeats that have been truly terrible results but I can't recall us losing to such a poor side in such a less than half-hearted manner. We are now at Monday night and if I think about Saturday I just get angry all over again.

orco wrote:Ayone who watched John Hughes's Livi team player in the 4-0 defeat at EEP has as low a comparison benchmark as you will get. That is not to say that Saturday was not poor too.

Apologies for the typos. Fat fingers on a wee keyboard typed in a hurry.