Livi v Hibs (Sat 13th Feb)

Still might be a couple of more players signed this week on free transfers or loans but as it stands i'd go for this team.

..................................McCallum


Halkett...............Gallagher..........Neill/*Gordon...........Kakay



J Mullin.............Fozzy.........Pittman........Stanton...........Mullen



....................................Buchanan


Would normally want White and Buchanan up front but can't see Hopkin going with 2 up against Hibs, more likely to be a 5 man midfield in a 4-3-2-1 or 4-4-1-1. That would at least give us pace on the wings to hit them on the counter and Pittman and/or Stanton to back Buchanan up.

Who really knows with Hopkin though as White keeps getting played in midfield.

*Dunno if Gordon has a 1 match or 2 match suspension.

Oops wrong place, could you move this to the match day forum EL. Must've been too much transfer excitement for me tonight.

Well my line up is right out the window with Dec in the clink and Stanton prob not allowed to play against his parent club, don't know if Gordon is still suspended either.

Prob better putting Halkett in at CB with Either Gordon or Neill, and having Kakay at RB and Longridge at LB.

Chance for Telfer to come in and show us what he's got, hopefully Fozzy is ok and wasn't injured for our last game, could do with his experience to organise us against Hibs.

I'd love to see us go 2 up front with White and Buchanan, but don't think Hopkin is brave enough for it, prob go 1 up and 5 in midfield, just don't be Mullen, go with Buchanan our top goal scorer and main goal threat. Can't afford to get it wrong like he did against Sevco and have the game lost before HT.

Hibs are a good passing team but they aren't unbeatable, we can get at them if we play this right, even then it would be a tough game and I doubt we'll get anything out of it, just want us to have a go at them though and at least show some fight.

3-1 Hibs, FG 34 mins.

Don't think any of our selection problems will matter a jot...except that they may want to save themselves for their cup replay.

I suspect Hoppy will persist with Mullen up on his own; Buchanan & White out wide & as many of his new boys in the side as can play.

Livi 0 Hibs 3 fg 23 mins

We're due a result against Hibs, we're both bottlers and they'll have a replay on their mind. Two weeks off can either go tits up or work completely in our favour.

Sticking my neck out, 1-1. FG 29 mins.

3-1 Hibs, FG 20 mins

Referee: Alan Muir

Match Day referee Muir has officiated two Hibernian games this season.

He has however already taken in 24 other matches so far in 2015-16 and in those games, across all competitions and football divisions, he has handed out a total of 74 yellow cards and four red cards.

Jolly good.

Comfortable win for Hibernian.This is another one we need to get out of the way before the defining part of the season begins.Sorry to be so defeatest just being realistic.Still i'l be in my usual seat cheering the lads on.Ive said it before minor miracle required.Cmon Livi do it!

Fecking snow blizzard, isn't looking good.

Decent game considering the conditions. Missed the first 5 mins but thought we had the best of the first 20, the next 5 were fairly even as Hibs came into it and then they had the best of the last 20 of the half. Second half we started off defending too deep and invited them on to us. Thought it was just a matter of time before they scored but the only time it looked like going in Ben Gordon cleared it off the line superbly and we were dangerous on the break towards the end but only close thing was the one that hit the post. Very impressed by Kakay. Halkett looked good again. Fozzy is a steadying influence. Mullin did pretty well. Telfer did okay when he came on. Still don't like White & Buchanan as a partnership but it seems pretty clear that Hoppy doesn't rate Sheerin.

Of the players that have been here pretty much all season, McCallum did well, Longridge was linking well with Kakay in the first half. Gordon was solid enough and effectively won us a point with that clearance. Cole had one of his better games. Pittman looked interested and made some good tackles and good runs, White & Buchanan could have pressed more and didn't link up well enough. Glen and Currie did okay when they came on.

Ref should have given us 2 or 3 free kicks in promising areas but didn't and shouldn't have given them 2 or 3 in promising positions but did...so nothing new there but on the whole he wasn't too bad. Don't know where he got 4 mins added time from though.

Much, much better. Very impressed with Halkett and Cole who were excellent throughout. Add a cutting edge and we'll start to pick up some wins.

Thought we were unlucky not to get the 3 points, White hitting the woodwork and Glen just missing a great ball into the box right in front of the keeper, well worth our draw anyway.

I've slagged Cole off this season, and deservedly so with his performances up till today, but this was more like him from last season, solid at the back and didn't put a foot wrong. Now he needs to do this all the time as we've seen he has it in him.

Kakay was superb again, really impressed with him, he's going to be a really important signing, as is Halkett, both are giving us width on the wings and we're looking like the old Livi from a few seasons ago, breaking up the pitch with pace and getting balls in from the bye line too. He started off in midfield linking up with Longridge, then dropped back to LB when Longridge went off, great signing.

Mullin did well with his debut, bags of energy and I think he'll be another great signing. Also impressed with Telfer when he came on, him and Currie chased down balls and injected energy into the team to keep it going for the rest of the game to get us a point.

The whole team worked hard, no passengers, great to see a good shape to the team with Hopkin getting it right and having the courage to play 4-4-2 against a top 2 team, if he continues to set the team out like this and with the signings he's made I actually think we can climb off 9th place.

Without getting carried away though i'll wait to see how we play against Raith, Alloa, Dumbarton and Morton, we absolutely must get a few wins from those game. We've had good performances against top teams before and then been disappointing against the teams around us, so lets hope we kick on from this result and start winning games.

Probably the best I've seen us all season yesterday. Was impressed with Kakay, got stuck in and looked sharp. I like the look of Mullin and I thought Halkett was solid and reliable, easily my man of the match. Darren Cole had a decent game for a fat bastard! But as always, we shit ourselves in front of goal. Buchanan is such a frustrating player! He works hard, mainly because he's sprinting after someone who's just taken the ball off him and is pulling away from him at jogging pace. He looks like the Championship scares him, he can't wait to get rid of the ball. He has a whiff of Rolando Zarate, only in the sense that apart from the goals he scores, he is utter dog shit. I would give anything to have Zarate back again, never ever thought I would say that. White and Buchanan don't seem to have gelled as a strike partnership, they don't know where each other are most of the time and they don't have the normal traits you'd expect from a front two. Really hope yesterday's performance is a sign of things to come and it wasn't just us raising our game for a big team. Another thing I never thought I'd say, it was good to hear a bit of sing song from the DBM boys. I normally cringe at some of the shouts coming from that section but they were in good voice at times yesterday and that can only encourage the players.

Only disagreement with you LF is that in the second half White sat deeper leaving Buchanan largely on his own...we as a team sat deeper so Hibs were swarming towards us for most of the half...and we cleared one off the line so a draw was fair.

ol1vercloff wrote:Probably the best I've seen us all season yesterday. Was impressed with Kakay, got stuck in and looked sharp. I like the look of Mullin and I thought Halkett was solid and reliable, easily my man of the match. Darren Cole had a decent game for a fat bastard! But as always, we shit ourselves in front of goal. Buchanan is such a frustrating player! He works hard, mainly because he's sprinting after someone who's just taken the ball off him and is pulling away from him at jogging pace. He looks like the Championship scares him, he can't wait to get rid of the ball. He has a whiff of Rolando Zarate, only in the sense that apart from the goals he scores, he is utter dog shit. I would give anything to have Zarate back again, never ever thought I would say that. White and Buchanan don't seem to have gelled as a strike partnership, they don't know where each other are most of the time and they don't have the normal traits you'd expect from a front two. Really hope yesterday's performance is a sign of things to come and it wasn't just us raising our game for a big team. Another thing I never thought I'd say, it was good to hear a bit of sing song from the DBM boys. I normally cringe at some of the shouts coming from that section but they were in good voice at times yesterday and that can only encourage the players.

For me, the DBM are really important in creating a good home atmosphere and hence helping the players relax. I honestly think the dead atmosphere has hindered us majorly in recent times and if I were at the club, I would be liaising with the DBM to possibly get them to move to the centre of the stand to try and get more people involved in creating an atmosphere.

I tend to agree EL; the DBM can create a good atmosphere and when they do the players are visibly lifted but they are also guilty of turning on the team at the first opportunity if something tried doesn't work out...it happened briefly yesterday and when that happens it has the opposite effect. The DBM are also often like the team in that they reserve their best efforts for the big games. If they encouraged as much against the likes of Alloa as they do against Hibs and Rangers then I think we would see better efforts out on the pitch but what usually happens is they berate them for every failed pass and so the standard of play drops. I mentioned this on another thread (possibly over in the Den) that the crowd can lift the players but the players can also lift the crowd and there is a fine line about what comes first. IMO if the players start 'flat' then the crowd ought to encourage them out of it but too often the DBM berate them when this happens & the performance drops off even more. It's not always like that but it does happen, so I would encourage the DBM and other sections that are vocal to be supportive and constructive even in adversity.

Bertie Bassett wrote:Only disagreement with you LF is that in the second half White sat deeper leaving Buchanan largely on his own...we as a team sat deeper so Hibs were swarming towards us for most of the half...and we cleared one off the line so a draw was fair.

They cleared one off the line too so a draw was the least we deserved, i'd say we should've won with the ball into the box that only needed Glen to get his head on to score and it looked harder to miss it than head it so well done Glen on doing the harder of the two.

Actually I thought we sucked them in to hit them on the break, we kept it compact at the back so Hibs couldn't get through us and they were restricted to taking pot shots from range which McCallum dealt with solidly, either punching them out the box or smothering them. I'd be happy keeping him on next season.

I like the look of our breaking with pace players, also kept two up on the half way line when we defended corners, hate to see us having everyone back at corners as we have to clear the ball at least twice and even then we've no out ball so it'll come back at us as we're moving out a 3rd or 4th time.

White was winning balls but players weren't close enough to him to pick up his knock/flick ons and it kept going to a Hibs player, hope we get that sorted as there is no point having a big player to win headers if they always go to an opposition player.

Bertie Bassett wrote:I tend to agree EL; the DBM can create a good atmosphere and when they do the players are visibly lifted but they are also guilty of turning on the team at the first opportunity if something tried doesn't work out...it happened briefly yesterday and when that happens it has the opposite effect.  The DBM are also often like the team in that they reserve their best efforts for the big games. If they encouraged as much against the likes of Alloa as they do against Hibs and Rangers then I think we would see better efforts out on the pitch but what usually happens is they berate them for every failed pass and so the standard of play drops. I mentioned this on another thread (possibly over in the Den) that the crowd can lift the players but the players can also lift the crowd and there is a fine line about what comes first. IMO if the players start 'flat' then the crowd ought to encourage them out of it but too often the DBM berate them when this happens & the performance drops off even more. It's not always like that but it does happen, so I would encourage the DBM and other sections that are vocal to be supportive and constructive even in adversity.

Yeah the expectation level wasn't on us getting anything so less chance of them turning on our players, against other teams our home support are more likely to get frustrated when we're not scoring goals. That may also have a lot to do with our performances at home, the fans transfer frustration onto the pitch and it boils over into giving players stick and booing them off the pitch at HT & FT. We need to be a bit more patient with the players and back them more to try and gee them up when things aren't going well.

We basically did to Hibs what Morton, Dumbarton and Alloa have done to us this season, play compact at the back and tried to score the odd goal to sneak a win, almost worked too. We've been murder at trying to break teams down playing that way against us. Isn't great to watch when you're the team expected to win but as the team not expected to get anything it is more acceptable to the fans. I doubt our fans will be as tolerant against Raith, Alloa and Dumbarton but they need to be.

I didn't see them clearing off the line...was it in the first 5 minutes? Arrived late.

Eventually we began to hit them on the break in the second half but initially we couldn't get out our half.

The thing that bugged me about White yesterday was the number of times he won the ball but played it the wrong way, especially when he could see the team mate he needed to find.

But overall a very good point on the day & all the more important to do so to maintain the gap over Alloa & at least claw back a little of the deficit on those above us.

Yep, we put 3 balls (I think) into their box at the start of the game which had them scrambling all over the place, one of those got hit towards their goal and cleared off the line.

Heard somebody behind me wanting us to hit our free kick and then throw in into their box to try and score when it was into injury time but I think we did the right thing and played it into the corner to see out the game and take our point. We worked hard for it and would've been just like the thing for Hibs to break up the pitch and grab a goal, leaving us gutted to get nothing from the game.

The experienced player in our team (Fozzy) made sure we got our point and took the throw in short. We got mugged by Cowden a few seasons ago by being naïve and taking a corner into their box just before the whistle and lost a goal when they hit us on the break. We were a goal up that day and had no need to put the corner in, sometimes need to use your head and know when to see out the game to make sure you hold onto what you've got.

Unexpected but very welcome point gained by the Lions yesterday.Thoughraly merited imo on a bitter evening with the elements against us.Agreed that we could have sneaked it near the end if Gary Glen had connected with that cross.But lets not be greedy .We all would have taken a point before the game and it might be a very important point for us come the end of the season.Think the new lads seem to be setteling in well for us. maybe theve come just at the right time for us hopefully.Onto to Starks park next in what will be a very tough but winnable game.

Bertie Bassett wrote:I tend to agree EL; the DBM can create a good atmosphere and when they do the players are visibly lifted but they are also guilty of turning on the team at the first opportunity if something tried doesn't work out...it happened briefly yesterday and when that happens it has the opposite effect.  The DBM are also often like the team in that they reserve their best efforts for the big games. If they encouraged as much against the likes of Alloa as they do against Hibs and Rangers then I think we would see better efforts out on the pitch but what usually happens is they berate them for every failed pass and so the standard of play drops. I mentioned this on another thread (possibly over in the Den) that the crowd can lift the players but the players can also lift the crowd and there is a fine line about what comes first. IMO if the players start 'flat' then the crowd ought to encourage them out of it but too often the DBM berate them when this happens & the performance drops off even more. It's not always like that but it does happen, so I would encourage the DBM and other sections that are vocal to be supportive and constructive even in adversity.

The DBM disbanded last year, hence the silence at the games now.

Is that the Real DBM that are there now?

Or just the M as they haven't got a drum.

Liviforever wrote:Is that the Real DBM that are there now?  

Or just the M as they haven't got a drum.

Still about 20 of the original lads but the "hangers on" and other members aren't at the games anymore, not this season anyway.
For many, the DBM being there was the main inspiration for going to a game, now that it's gone, people can take advantage of overtime at work or other weekend activities.

Never got that about those kind of fans, I like the effort they put in and the atmosphere they create but it looks like they are more interested in that than watching the actual game. On the telly you see the main man standing all game with his back to the pitch conducting the singing and not even bothering about the football, a bit strange.