Livi v St Mirren

A win would be great to keep the pressure on Dumbarton, we've done well in games against St Mirren, the 4-1 win was a bit of a surprise though, would do wonders for my blood pressure if we could have another result like that.

Could do with Cole getting a grip of himself and stop putting dodgy pass backs to McCallum, because St Mirren are exactly the team to jump on loose passes, they're pretty quick on the counter attack so our defence needs to be on their toes.

I wont bother trying to predict Hopkin's starting line up, no idea what he'll go for but hopefully it isn't Telfer up front again, he's far more effective floating round linking up with the wing backs and getting balls into the strikers.

I'll go for a cheeky 3-1 Livi win, fg 9 mins with us coming out the traps quick and firing in an early goal.

As ever I admire your optimism but while we have had three clean sheets in a row at home and have a 3 competitive game unbeaten run going.... I simply can't see either run surviving. Saints seem to have put some good results together (on the whole) and okay so have we but that means something has to give....

Liv 0 StM 2 fg 27 mins

We are going to lose and it will be horrible to watch.

2-0 St Mirren. FG 19 mins.

I must've missed where St Mirren are better than us, they're fecking gash and we're going to beat them. Mon the Lions, bring it on.

Agree with LF

2 nil

First goal 23 mins

They were gash when they beat us 1-0 at the Vale last time they visited...but they won

Yeah but on that logic so were Dumbarton and they scraped a late goal to draw and then Alloa beat us, but we've just beaten both of them this time around. Those games were played with Burchill in charge too, things have changed on the pitch since then, with our performances and playing staff, as well as the manager. We scudded them 4-1 when Hopkin took over and although I can't see that scoreline I still think we're better in head to heads against them.

Our home form has improved a lot too, unbeaten this year with draws against Falkirk, Hibs and Morton, and a win against Dumbarton.

St Mirren fans are saying they have a bit of grit to grind out results when playing badly, but so have we, I see no reason to fear them and am quite optimistic we can continue with our current run of form. I don't see St Mirren beating us but we really need a win against them to drag them back into the mix for 9th place, a draw would suit them a lot more than us.

Our home form has improved and their away form is gash, think you need to go back to the start of January for their last away win. That said, I'm still not confident for some reason.

1-1, FG 29 mins

We beat Alloa away a few weeks back, think it was our last away game. It has been a bit stop start with our fixtures recently so hard to remember when we played who, there has been a break a couple of times in between home games and then we had 3 games played over 7 days. Pretty good that we've managed to get this run of undefeated games going with all the random fixtures we've had.

The question is, never mind which starting 11 Hopkin puts out, will we be wearing our lucky away strip whilst playing at home again?

Tough one to call this is imo.Both sides have had relatively poor seasons so far although St Mirrin seem to have given themselves a wee cushion over the rest of us.I think if we are going to win this game the first goal will be crucial but i believe if the players are up for this then as has already been said we have nothing to be fearefull of.Good news about Halkett and Pitman signing on for another year they will surely be better next season regardless of where we are.Anyways looking forward to tommorow although alas i fear a share of the spoils may be the order of the day here.Hope im wrong!.Cmon the Lions.Do it for yourselves and for us!.

Liviforever wrote:Yeah but on that logic so were Dumbarton and they scraped a late goal to draw and then Alloa beat us, but we've just beaten both of them this time around. Those games were played with Burchill in charge too, things have changed on the pitch since then, with our performances and playing staff, as well as the manager. We scudded them 4-1 when Hopkin took over and although I can't see that scoreline I still think we're better in head to heads against them.

But that is the flaw in your argument...football is, as Mr Spock would say, illogical captain. All logic tells me is that we have better players than Alloa and Dumbarton but the latter are still ahead of us. Logic also tells me that our players are not as good Rangers or Hibs but we managed to match them last time out. Football is about heart and passion and grit and determination and ability and luck; it has absolutely nothing to do with logic. If it had anything to do with logic then when team A beats team B 2-0 and team B beats team C 1-0; team A would then beat team C 3-0...but that never happens.

So I hope beyond all hope that we can win tomorrow...but I don't think we will

Yeah but it was you that started the logic argument, I just out done your logic, so now you're trying to throw logic away.

Simply put we lost and drew to teams in that period and now we've just beaten 2 of those teams this period, St Mirren are next to go down as we continue our push for 8th place. Mon ra Livi Lions.

Not at all, I was pointing out that you can't apply logic; you were saying we are better so we will win which is a logical argument I was pointing out we were better but they won, which proves that logic doesn't apply.

So I have been consistent in my argument & it is you who is throwing your logical baby out with the logical bathwater.

I rest my case m'lud.

Won't be there this week but I'm hopeful. 1-0 Livingston FG 40 mins.

Bertie Bassett wrote:Not at all, I was pointing out that you can't apply logic; you were saying we are better so we will win which is a logical argument I was pointing out we were better but they won, which proves that logic doesn't apply.

So I have been consistent in my argument & it is you who is throwing your logical baby out with the logical bathwater.

I rest my case m'lud.

Was more a case of you pointing out that we were better than them the last time too but they beat us in that game and me pointing out the Alloa and Dumbarton results in the same period, and then applying the logical scenario of us having just beaten Alloa and Dumbarton in this period we are likely to do the same to St Mirren. I'm still sticking with that over what you're saying anyway.

It's ok LF, you can be wrong if you want, but your argument was based on logic... We are better, therefore we will win; I said we were better but lost, which implies that football doesn't follow the rules of logic. You then compared results and again drew a logical conclusion, we got better results against Dumbarton and Alloa than last time therefore we will do better against St Mirren and when I specifically spelled out that football is not logical you suggested I introduced the concept of logic to the discussion, so couldn't throw it away when in fact it was you who introduced it and was now throwing it away. I grant you that I may have mentioned it first but you were arguing logically from the start therefore you were the one to introduce logic.

I hope you're conclusions on the result are correct of course, if so, then who cares about logic anyway

Anyway, nearly game time.... Live long and prosper!

What a liability Cole was today, complete nightmare of a performance.

Wonder goal won the game but Cole almost single handedly did more for St Mirren than any other player on the pitch.

It was fairly open but was dominated by two defences determined to lose...actually that is harsh on our defence, Cole was determined to lose, Halkett and Kakay tried to defence and attack as much as they could, Gordon was largely safety first but Cole was a one man self-destruction wrecking crew

In the end it all came down to Cole being a liabity and at fault for their first 2 goals, I failed to factor in the Cole dodgyness in defence.

That's a few games he's been terrible in now, starting with his first one back from injury at Dumbarton, where he at least had an excuse for being off the pace of the game. Against Raith he was murder, and is always making dodgy pass backs and wrong decisions when under pressure, either letting the ball bounce or trying something fancy to beat the attacker, and it mostly gets him, and Livi, into trouble. He was lucky to get away with another one just before we got our 2nd goal, complete nightmare in defence. I think Hopkin left it late to sub him to insert his managerial aurority over the fans who were calling for Cole to be subbed.

Right that's my Cole rant out of the way, some positives in how we played and came back twice, Buchanan and White looked good up front, thought Buchanan was perhaps a bit slow in getting the ball across to White at times, or not even bothering to try, the big fella was getting into good positions for a tap in but wasn't being given the ball.

Neil was unlucky heading against the bar and we had another cleared off the line, White should've had a pen too after being blatantly shoved in the back to stop him being through on goal for a header, unfortunately the defending by Cole let us down and ultimately cost us the game.

Good strikes by Shankland but Cole fecked up to allow him the time to hit it for his first goal and we were again nowhere near him for his 2nd goal, can't blame Cole for that one so someone else should've been on him making sure he couldn't get his shot off, esp after seeing him score the other goal in much the same way.

All the other results went our way too so gutted we lost and didn't close the gap on Dumbarton and St Mirren. Still think we can catch Dumbarton though as we're def a lot better looking in attack, and surely Cole will be dropped now.

On Cole yes he made mistakes that cost us the game but our fans once again to cheer as he was being subbed is just wrong.

Also noted that Liviforever thoughts about Buchanan are the same as mine,would hate to think he was deliberately not passing to
White but it did appear so.

White was in excellent positions twice Buchanan failed to pass for a tap in........hope I'm wrong tho

I'm fuming about that result. The management team should be hanging their heads in shame for continuing to have faith in Cole. I'm ready to blow so can't say much more at the moment!

Smithy wrote:On Cole yes he made mistakes that cost us the game but our fans once again to cheer as he was being subbed is just wrong.

100% this, for any player.

EdinburghLivi wrote:

Smithy wrote:On Cole yes he made mistakes that cost us the game but our fans once again to cheer as he was being subbed is just wrong.

100% this, for any player.

Absolutely some fans did it to White couple of games back too, just beggars belief.

Don't agree with cheering a player off the pitch. Does nothing for his confidence after having a horrendous performance. Morgan needs to start the next few games and give Cole time to get his head together. 

Think that's us in terms of finishing 8th though. 3 games against hibs sevco and Falkirk coming up, as well as games away to queens and Morton. We are finished

On Buchanan/White..... there was a point during the game when I said "Its good having strikers who want to outdo the other in terms of goals scored but the team must come first" - it was just after Buchanan failed to square/cross to White who was centre-of-goal-to-back-post area & would have had a tap in; instead Buchanan fired at Langfield & I think we got a corner but our corners were average at best all game.

I think we can still catch Dumbarton but it will be difficult with the games we have left.

Achilles wrote:Don't agree with cheering a player off the pitch. Does nothing for his confidence after having a horrendous performance. Morgan needs to start the next few games and give Cole time to get his head together. 

Think that's us in terms of finishing 8th though. 3 games against hibs sevco and Falkirk coming up, as well as games away to queens and Morton. We are finished

Not quite finished because our last games against Falkirk Hibs Morton and Rangers all ended in draws,so we could achieve that same return again.
We are capable of beating Raith Queens and Alloa collecting 13 points from 21 available.

Just stop the crazy errors at the back because midfield and attack seem ok an we could just pull the great escape off again.

Even if we don't and are involved in the play offs Im confident we will still be in The Championship next season.