Alloa v Livi

Big game for us, although I don't think the result is going to decide the final outcome this early in the season, it would give us a huge confidence boost knowing we can beat them, and inflicting their first defeat on them would maybe dent theirs enough to affect their performance in the next game, and show teams they aren't unbeatable.

Buchanan will be buzzing after his hattrick and has a habit of scoring against Alloa since he joined us, so that is good, can see this being a 3-2 or 4-3 game, hopefully in our favour.

I have to go for a Livi win, my Livi optimistic brain just isn't wired for any other outcome, 3-2 Livi, fg 9 mins.

Lets get right into them and give them their first defeat, mon the Lions.

The Wasps are buzzing at the moment, really flying and stinging the opposition as they swarm forward.

10 straight wins in all competitions including beating much higher rated sides.

We will do well to get a point in this one & I suspect we won't;

Alloa 3 Liv 1 fg 15 mins

Alloa are absolutely flying and we'd be doing well to prevent them winning, let alone inflicting defeat on them. Nothing to say we can't do it though, a great team spirit and an astute manager they may have but ultimately they're a League 1 team like ourselves. They're not infallible.

1-1, FG 26 mins.

Buchanan loves playing well and scoring against them, we beat them twice at their ground last season and we'll be the first team to inflict a defeat on them this season.

Once we beat them this air of invincibility will be shattered, you'd think they were fecking Barcelona or something, they're a PT team in League One and they're going down to the mighty Lions.

No idea why but I think we'll win tomorrow with a decent away support.

0-2 FG 32 mins.

Well Here goes.IMO anything other than a defeat will be a bonus for us.Make no bones about it we are more than capable of putting this lot to the sword but all depends what Livi team turn up.Alloa have done tremendously well to be where they are at the moment but if theres a team who can stop them in their tracks its us.Just hope Hoppy has done his homework on them and had us training on narrow plastic this week.Agree with E/L that we should have a decent away support for tommorow.So much happening tommorow sports wise for the armchair fan but personnally id rather be there to see it live albeit the inflated addmision price charged by Alloa like Airdrie is an absolute disgrace for this division.Any way rant over its up to the Lions now to put these imposters in their place.Their good but not that good ,Cmon the Lions Do it!!!

1-1, FG 16 mins

1-0 to the AM. FG 51 mins.

A lion will never feel a wasp's sting.

Excellent result and terrific first half performance. Very nervy in the second but the likes of Crighton and Lithgow put nothing past them in the air which was the difference between us and them. Halkett was excellent as the sweeper and Pittman was solid linking up the midfield with Buchanan and Mullen.

Beat Brechin next week and crack on with the rest of the season while we sit at the top of table. Cheers boys xoxo

What did I tell you all, we handed out their first defeat and a comfortable one at that. Fantastic first half by Livi, and what a strike for Miller's goal.
Good to see we can see out a game as well, sat back to hit them on the break 2nd half and could've had a 4th goal to really kill them off but wasn't to be, shame they got a penalty to ruin our clean sheet.

Thought Mullen put in a great shift running their defenders ragged, dear knows how that fouling git Goodwin didn't get booked the amount of pushes, deliberate blocking off and blatant barges he did, even falling on top of Mullen and doing a rugby tackle on him and getting away with it.

Buchanan should've scored a couple of times in the 2nd half but just didn't quite get the ball under control when it fell for him. Got his goal in the first half though.

Pittman was superb again and deserved his goal.

Crighton was solid and had good bursting runs up the pitch, getting in quite a few crosses too, would've liked to have seen him just go for it instead of passing when he was just outside the box, has the strength to burst through players.

Thought Kelly was good in goals, cracking save from a free kick to keep up on top in the first half too.

Pity Airdrie didn't stay level with Brechin but we play them next week so good chance to go top of the league with a win against them.

I admit I didn't think it would be that easy today, our players were well up for it and you could see they were well pleased after the whistle with a couple of them punching their fists at our fans in delight.

Oh and going 3 at the back with Mullin and Cadden on the wings worked really well, that's the best our defence has looked this season.

LiviCub wrote:Excellent result and terrific first half performance. Very nervy in the second but the likes of Crighton and Lithgow put nothing past them in the air which was the difference between us and them. Halkett was excellent as the sweeper and Pittman was solid linking up the midfield with Buchanan and Mullen.

Beat Brechin next week and crack on with the rest of the season while we sit at the top of table. Cheers boys xoxo

I was surprised with the amount of high balls Alloa played straight up the centre, Crighton, Halkett and Lithgow mopped them up all day.

Considering the change in personnel required, and that Alloa were flying up until today, that is a superb result. Credit to the team for the professional performance, weathered the initial Alloa pressure before exerting our attacking values, really should've scored before we did with Buchanan missing an open goal and Mullen cracking the crossbar. They looked shell-shocked from the blitz we inflicted on them, they looked slightly better second half but it was as confident a defensive display that we've put in all season. Three at the back could be the answer for the entire team, plays well to Halkett's strengths and helps Crighton and Lithgow, and in reality allows us to have pretty consistent threats down the wings with two of Mullin, Cadden and Longridge to pick from at any one time.

Mentions to Mullen, Cadden and Pittman today, thought they were excellent and integral to how we executed our game plan. Special mention to Miller, too, for his strike for the third. Best I've seen in a while from someone in a Livi shirt.

Liviforever wrote:

LiviCub wrote:Excellent result and terrific first half performance. Very nervy in the second but the likes of Crighton and Lithgow put nothing past them in the air which was the difference between us and them. Halkett was excellent as the sweeper and Pittman was solid linking up the midfield with Buchanan and Mullen.

Beat Brechin next week and crack on with the rest of the season while we sit at the top of table. Cheers boys xoxo

I was surprised with the amount of high balls Alloa played straight up the centre, Crighton, Halkett and Lithgow mopped them up all day.

Just desperate tactics from Jack Ross and the Alloa jobbers, knowing fine well they were beaten by a far more superior team and football club. To be fair though, we won the game by Mullen playing off the last shoulder of their defence, meaning his pace would completely catch them out. I don't know how Alloa haven't been caught out yet with the lack of pace in the spine of their team.

Excellent result today; Alloa weren't as good as I expected them to be but had just started playing better when we got our noses in front. I thought our luck was going to desert us when Buchanan got round the keeper and shot wide, quickly followed by Mullen hitting the bar. But Mullen did superbly to stay onside in the build up to the opener. I was expecting it to be disallowed (didn't see anything wrong, just thought ref would imagine it), terrific play for the second and what a hit by Miller for the 3rd, I saw him lining up the shot and thought "What's he doing?" but he nailed it and at 3-0 you better believe Alloa were relieved to hear the HT whistle.

However, the second half was further evidence that our half time team talks are detrimental to our performance because our defence was overworked in the second half and yet we still could have scored more. I would like to have seen the guys hitting from distance as the Alloa keeper was regularly well off his line. But it would be churlish to complain too much about that because the defence held firm and deserved the shut out that would surely have been achieved if Goodwin hadn't awarded the penalty (and yes I mean Goodwin, because the officials hadn't awarded anything until he and his team mate surrounded Charleston - what a buffoon he is btw, even if he did have a laugh when someone yelled that Falkirk were losing, we all know Mullen goes down too easily but he wasn't doing so every time and if that was a genuine pen for Alloa then we should have had one right after it)

Excellent performances from Miller, Halkett, Lithgow, Crighton, Pittman and Sinclair - particularly in the first half. Very good performances from the rest who all played unselfishly for the team.

When do we play Brechin? (Weird, I posted this before anyone else had posted anything just before 6pm but only just came back to view what else had been said and it hadn't saved... So Brechin at the ' Vale next week .... Bring it on... But they are going well so let's not take them for granted)

I think we played the 2nd half well enough, letting Alloa come at us and hitting them on the break, we really should've finished them off with a 4th and maybe even a 5th goal, we had enough chances to do so.
I was actually pleased to see that side of us, being able to soak up the Alloa pressure, then later bringing the game down a notch to see it out comfortably. Took a dodgy penalty for them to ruin our clean sheet and Alloa were the highest scoring team in the league. They've also had a good defensive record so to score 3 going on 5 was pleasing too. They had only conceded 3 in their previous 4 league games.

I agree it was good game management in the end and as you should see from my earlier post I picked out the back 3 as stand-outs... But in a game we were cruising to win in the 1st half I want to be picking the attacking players as stand outs rather than the defence for soaking up pressure and doing so well. But that's just me being picky, never satisfied

Bertie Bassett wrote:I agree it was good game management in the end and as you should see from my earlier post I picked out the back 3 as stand-outs... But in a game we were cruising to win in the 1st half I want to be picking the attacking players as stand outs rather than the defence for soaking up pressure and doing so well. But that's just me being picky, never satisfied

Indeed, and especially so after you predicted we'd lose 3-1.


Talking about being picky, Lithgow and Crighton are needing to practice their headers from corners, they were hanging about on the edge of the Alloa box not being picked up and got a few free headers, was a bit disappointed they weren't hitting the target with them. Was the same against QP a couple of weeks ago, QP and Alloa aren't very good at defending set pieces but we didn't take advantage of that and both those players are strong in the air winning balls, but they need to get headers on target.

I said on Friday that Alloa werent as good as a lot of people had been making them out to be.Delighted that the Lions proved me right.Tremendous effort from the lads all over the pitch.Hard to call a MOM but i personally thought Crighton and Cadden were outstanding on a day we seemed to click.Dubious officiating at the best of times didnt put us off apart from a wee lull in the second half but was great to see the team see out the game as a contest.Big kudos to those who made the trip over to Alloa im sure the club appreciated our efforts to get there and support the team.Brechin seem to have slipped under the radar for most people but hopelly we can readress the balance next week to go back to the summit where we belong.Thoughts on that one later in the week .Once again well done Livi and will be nice to see some recognition in the press about us as opposed to Alloa though i wont hold my breath!!!.

Don't know if they weren't as good as people thought or more of a case that we are better than a lot of people think. Alloa are a good looking team, pass the ball around well and pressed us hard at times but that's the kind of teams we play well against, it plays to our strengths when teams come at us.

QP are the kind of teams we struggle against and we really need to be able to find a way to beat them.

Good all round performance.

The refereeing was poor. Goodwin, in particular, got away with murder. Some of his fouls were blatant and others were sleekit wee elbows and shoves in the back. It seems to me that some referees think that in the lower leagues its ok to allow rougher play. In saying that Alloa players were getting free kicks every time they went down - which they did a lot. Danny though needs to stop the diving. It comes back to bite him after a while.

As others have said I like the fact that we have players on the bench that can come on without a drop in standard.

After watching the highlights of the Queens Park game I am annoyed that we didn't get the point. The disallowed goal was definitely onside. We would be sitting top today but for another incompetent official.

I was disappointed in Alloa for the opening 10 mins, I then thought they started to play a bit until we had the wee spell leading up to the first goal, we then controlled the rest of the first half.

Second half we sat back as seems to be the game plan these days, annoys me greatly, get battered into them again and put them to the sword. Sitting back just invites them to have a go and if they get anything it boosts their confidence and makes it difficult. The difference yesterday was that our defence was rock solid (dodgy pen decision notwithstanding).

Ross and Kirkpatrick get League One MoTM & PoTM award for Aug after losing to Livi, good old curse strikes again.

http://www.alloaadvertiser.com/sport/alloaathletic/14742015.Wasps_gaffer_and_attacker_scoop_awards/

Can't say I'm surprised they got the August awards, 10 straight wins would have been impressive even if they had all been league games but with some being cup ties in which they beat higher league opposition it really was an excellent run of form/results.

Our win is all the sweeter because of that and it was a fairly comfortable win.