Livi v Albion Rovers

They beat Airdrie and QP 2-0 in their last two games so can't take them lightly, one of those midtable teams that could cause us problems.

Our home form has been really good this season and I think we'll continue that with another home win. Hopefully the players are buzzing after their Crusaders win and go to town on Rovers, Josh Mullin is a nap to score against his former club and can see Danny Mullen banging in a goal or two. 3-1 Livi, fg 14 mins.

Albion could be difficult opponents depending on whether they keep their manager who must be of interest to Alloa. We should be good enough but I foresee I tight struggle and a share of the spoils.

Liv 1 AR 1
Fg 27 mins

Alloa have already appointed Jim Goodwin.

1-1, FG 23 mins

Yeah, saw that today...funnily enough I thought they might when I read that Darren Young might be a target in the event of Ross going back to Paisley. My immediate thought was they've got Goodwin approaching the end of his career, they might go with the cheap option.

Hoping we can kick on from the Crusaders win, and I think we will. 2-0 Livi, FG 29 mins.

BTW has anyone tasted a pie down at the ground since we changed suppliers to a Broxburn butcher, had one at the stadium last week watching the Crusaders game and it was the mutt's nuts, one of the best pies I've tasted at a football ground. Had a bite of a steak pie to taste and it was also superb, nice and tender meat with lovely gravy.

I usually have something to eat in the AS pre match but think i'll save myself for the serveries and have a steak pie watching the game.

So do we get to play Lithgow now?

Not sure Orco.They seem to make these rules up as they go along.As for tommorows game just hope the players can put this fiasco to the back of their minds.Its another one against a mid table team so would expect it to be tight.As others have already said if we have any aspirations of league glory we really should be winning these type of games especially at home,no disrespect to Albion Rovers of course.The league is our priority lets not forget,cup runs are a wee bonus.Massive apology required from the club to those who made the trip to Belfast if the inevitable happens imo.

orco wrote:So do we get to play Lithgow now?

We'd be better not taking a chance on playing him, it maybe gives us a slight chance at the hearing if we show them we've left Lithgow out of our last two league games, and hope they take that into account when deciding what to do with us.

Nae chance. The SFA never miss a chance to hammer Livi. I doubt we will play him but it won't change their minds. It is going to be double jeopardy. Bumped out of the cup cos we played him and lose his services tomorrow because he still has a second game to miss. Vintage Livi cock up.

They can't possibly play him as he has only served a single game of a 2 game ban.

Dundee United fell foul of the eligible player rules so bigger clubs than us make similar mistakes but as I say over on the Crusaders thread, it just shoukd not happen in the modern world of multimedia mass and instant communication

We played right in to their hands today... Until Hopkin finds a system or style that gives us the edge over teams set up to counter attack, we're not getting out of this division. He needs to find it soon, or else it may very well be the end of him here. It's all fine and dandy beating your nearest challengers, but failing to despatch of sides below in addition to that points to a fundamental problem somewhere along the line.

Also, no more Miller at RB, please. Ball watched for the second goal and looked like a lost boy at times.

And, taking Pittman off and replacing him with Knox; that's the naive tactical decisions that landed us in this division in the first place from DH.

Two words to sum up today's game... Utter garbage.

Why in the name o' the wee man did we have 2 wingers on the pitch and then try to play through the middle? Why did we fail to change this when within 10 minutes of the game starting it became obvious that Rovers were defending as wide as the 18 yard box?

I concede that our best move of the match came through the middle with excellent one touch football which resulted in Mullen hitting the post but that was the ONLY time that the tactics worked in creating a chance and we missed it.

Why did we not take on shots and follow them up for rebounds when it was also obvious that the Rovers keeper was spilling anything that came his way?

Why did we have a 5 man midfield in the first half and more often than not play high balls from back to front to two wee forwards when it was obvious that the Rovers defence was comfortable defending against that?

That said I thought Pittman was our best player but even he wasn't up to the standards he has shown already this season. Kelly had no chance with 1st and almost saved the 2nd and was largely okay. Mullen tried hard and did well on the ball but was rarely in areas that would hurt the Rovers defence, through no fault of his own. The wide men continually came inside and showed a reluctance to take on their opposing full backs. Byrne and Miller possibly had their worst games for us, Crighton skinned his man superbly and put in a good cross once in the first half and was average at best for the rest of the game. Longridge put in one good overlap and cross also in the first half but was likewise average at best. Halkett looked a shadow of the player we saw last season when he stood out in a struggling team. Buchanan took his pen well but it wasn't one of his better games. Subs didn't really change anything and taking Pittman off was completely the wrong thing to do.

Very disappointed in Hopkin's tactics today, they did not suit the conditions or the team selected but played right into the hands of the opposition; by direct contrast Young set up Rovers to defend their goal and hit on the break and they did the former comfortably and got both their goals from the latter.

Play like this against Alloa next week and we'll get horsed.

First half was ok, created several chances and had one cleared off the line but 2nd half we ran out of ideas and just huffed and puffed till we got the dodgy penalty to make the last couple of minutes a bit interesting. Didn't look like we'd score if we played all day in that 2nd half though and Rovers deserved their win. They could've had a couple more hitting us on the counter too, the penalty goal gave us a wee glimmer of hope but we really wouldn't have deserved anything from that game.

That's QP, East Fife and Rovers sussing us out, we really need to adapt to teams hitting us on the break with direct play.

On the whole nothing much changed, only a point separating the top 3 teams, tough game next week but a win against Alloa moves us up to at least 2nd place, we've done better against teams playing attacking football, committing players into attack and leaving us room to get in behind them.

What a shitty week to be a Livi fan. When was the last time we had the majority of possession but had the shit ripped out of us by binmen and lorry drivers? Buchanan looked out of his depth like he was last season. Maybe partly down to lack of service, Crighton shouldn't be in positions to cross the ball because 9 time out of 10, its crap. Still early days but we have to start pulling away from these part-time sides soon.

In what sense was the first half okay?

I'm going to give some credit to Albion. Their work rate was much better than ours. They closed us down well while we allowed ourselves to be bullied off the ball. They also went on dangerous runs forward and found their men better with their passes. We on the other hand did not fight enough for the ball and when we had it invariably passed it back or sideways.
Albion always looked more likely to score when they went forward. We deserved nothing from that game, not even the soft penalty.
Big improvement needed next week.
PS couldn't believe Pitman was being subbed.

I agree with you Orco on what you give them credit for but in truth they didn't have to do very much to be better than us today and they were not a particularly good team.

I liked Boyd and thought he would improve our squad.

Bertie Bassett wrote:In what sense was the first half okay?

In the sense we actually created chances and could've/should've scored a few goals. We hit the post, got one cleared off the line, and went close with a couple of others, if we got just a wee break and scored it would've been a completely different game, with us not having to commit so many players in attack and getting hit with another goal on the counter. Fine lines in games and it just wasn't happening for us in that game.

2nd half was flat and Albion had us right where they wanted, fell right into their game plan to be able to defend a lead and hit us on the counter, the onus was on us to break them down but we just didn't look like we were ever going to do it in the 2nd half. Although we clipped the top of the bar with a header from a corner but really didn't do much in open play.

Can't add anything to what has already been said. We were honking all over the park. Hopkin looked totally clueless about how to change things and when he did, brought off the player that looked the best of a very bad bunch.

In truth AR could have had 4 goals today and would have deserved them. We were total rank.

I saw Livi at East Fife a few weeks back and they were as bad there as they were today. There is no point in beating Alloa and Brechin to chuck it away like we did today. More performances like that and we'll be heading for mid-table mediocrity at the very best.

The lack of any cheering when we scored the penalty summed up the mood of the fans. And as for those happy clappy Livi fans at the end,
WTF !!!

Dunno, if we hadn't beaten Alloa and Brechin they'd both be out of sight after just 9 games, as it is we're only 1 point behind them and can go above Alloa next week with a win against them.

Imo Hopkin set us up about the best he could with Lithgow out, but it just didn't work and he basically had all our best players already on the pitch so his substitutions didn't improve us any. As has been said we needed Mullin and Cadden to hit the byeline and put balls in behind them, work overlaps etc, don't know why we didn't do that though as we had the players on the pitch to do it. Also don't know why we didn't hit shots from outside the box, Mullen has scored a couple of goals following in from Buchanan's shots coming back off the keeper.

Would be good if we could beat Alloa and Brechin, then not trip up against these mid table teams, so we could open up a gap on them but so far that isn't happening and it is very interchangeable between the 3 top teams, almost a different team takes top spot each week.

Liviforever wrote:

Bertie Bassett wrote:In what sense was the first half okay?

In the sense we actually created chances and could've/should've scored a few goals. We hit the post, got one cleared off the line, and went close with a couple of others, if we got just a wee break and scored it would've been a completely different game, with us not having to commit so many players in attack and getting hit with another goal on the counter. Fine lines in games and it just wasn't happening for us in that game.

2nd half was flat and Albion had us right where they wanted, fell right into their game plan to be able to defend a lead and hit us on the counter, the onus was on us to break them down but we just didn't look like we were ever going to do it in the 2nd half. Although we clipped the top of the bar with a header from a corner but really didn't do much in open play.

The only time I really thought we were going to score though was Mullen hitting the post; had that gone in maybe we'd have taken some encouragement & kicked on to win as it was a great piece of play; but the one you mention as being kicked off the line.... don't remember that at all so I don't think it was as close to going in as you think it was. Nothing else was worthy of being called a "chance" - we were very poor & as we have all said we had probably the best 11 available to us on the pitch but we didn't play to the strengths of the players on the pitch & for that Hopkin has to shoulder the blame; likewise his substitution of Pittman was a shocking decision UNLESS the lad had taken a knock. The early season optimism from the performances & benefit of the doubt towards Hopkin as manager is very quickly being eroded by inept tactics & bizarre substitutions.

Where was the urgency at 0-2 to get back in to the game? There wasn't any. When we got the goal there was a wee burst for about 20 seconds & then we just gave up again.

The crowd was also flat from the outset today; very quiet in the stand. Which indicates how much the fans feed off a team playing well or at least trying like bears to do something.

Their opener was simple & Boyd ran 20-25 yards without anyone closing him down. Kelly was unlucky for the second initially stopping the lad but the ball broke for him to tap in.

Keep performing like that & we'll lose ground to Alloa & Brechin quite quickly; play like that next week & Alloa will give us a doing.

Poor Poor performance from the Lions yesterday.as Orco says we have to give credit to the Albion Rovers management team .They got their tactics spot on imo with the way they got ten men behind the ball almost every time their attack broke down hence frustrating the hell out of a lacklustre Livi team.Also Hopkins substitutions get more and more baffling week after week.To take off our most creative player was criminal imo and shows tactical nievity on his behalf.Can understand why there was a lack of enthusasim coming from the stand as it was torture at times whatching that display.Massive game for us next week just hope arses are duly kicked on Monday morning because by god they need it.!!!

Not sure how much the news of us fecking up over Lithgow contributed to the flat performance, the players would've been on a high after the Crusaders result and then just before this game they got hit with the news they'd prob be kicked out the cup. Certainly put a downer on us fans, was very flat in the stands too.

Some of the comments on P&B from Livi fans is unbelievable, so much despair from one bad result/performance.  One minute we're going to win the league after a few good results, the next we're going to be relegated after a defeat. Maybe better being like Bertie, thinking we'll lose most of the time. 

Every time I win you over you always find something to delude yourself into thinking positively again.

Incedentally i wondered much the same about the Lithgow situation after the game as we walked to the car. My oldest said it was no excuse but it's human nature. I suspect there may have been some underestimating of Rovers but ultimately I lay the blame for the inept performance firmly with Hopkin and his obvious lack of tactical awareness