Livi v Peterhead

League wise it was a good week for us with Brechin losing to Airdrie on Sat and Alloa drawing with East Fife last night. Our game in hand against Stenny isn't till the 13th of Dec though so we need to keep our winning run going to stay top.

Not sure what to expect from this game after our disappointing result with TNS but hopefully the team will want to make up for that defeat with a win against Peterhead.

Back to league business and scoring goals 4-1 Livi, fg 12 mins.

2-0 Livi, FG 34 mins.

As usual I expect stuffy opposition but hopefully the manager of the month curse has been exorcised by the cup defeat. We should be too strong for the loons frae the blue toon, so I am going with....

Liv 3 Pet 1 fg 18 mins

Cant find it in me to critisize the team for the wee blimp last week but hopefully we will get a bit of a response from them tommorow against a dogged Peterhead side who in my opinion are going throgh a tough time of it at the moment.Most would have probably thought that they might have been higher in the the division but suffice to say we cant afford to show mercy when a team is down there.And if other results elsewhere go in our favour we could possibly open up that wee gap at the top we are all hoping for.Balls in our court.Over to you Livi Do it!!!

Perfect weather conditions

3 - 1 to Livi

FG 24 mins

Confident today: 3-0 Livi, FG 6 mins.

Cracking day for it anyway, nice and sunny but with all the rain we've had the pitch should be wet and have a bit of zip to it for passing it about quickly. Need to get shots off a lot more and take advantage of the conditions, should be ideal for low hard shots skipping along the wet grass, making it difficult for keepers to hold onto the ball and ideal for Mullen to follow in for tap ins.

Just noticed the team sheet, no De Vita listed in the squad, wonder if he's injured. Maybe see more of Pittman up front and giving Mullin a start too, so still good attacking midfielders.

So much for that then, pitch had dried up and was a bit heavy looking, not zippy at all.

Another game where we played decent enough but couldn't find the net, still shocked that we went in 1-0 down at HT after such a one sided game, doing everything but scoring a goal. Scrappy goal to concede to what was prob their only shot at goal but when we dominate play and can't score you're always afraid the other side will get the one chance to score and do so.

Officiating aside with the nearside linesman and ref apparently blind to pushes on our strikers all game, and farside linesman having a few disputable offside calls against us, we weren't clinical enough with quite a few goal chances and are being punished for it. Being a goal down leaves us pushing up more and more and then we're going to be caught with counter attacks, esp when we take off Longridge to go 3 at the back to push forward more. Really need to be getting that first goal to push on from so we're not chasing the game 2nd half.

Pitch cut up badly at times, it caused a number of unforced errors by our defence. They seemed to cope with it better than us. I said after the TNS game that these conditions would hinder us and today proved the point.

Couldn't believe Buchanan missing the open goal, Mullen hitting the bar and someone (Byrne?) hitting one of our players (Mullen?) when it was easier to score.

I expected them to sit in but they were quite open until they went ahead. That said we were cutting them open with ease in the first half but simply not working the keeper hard enough, all his saves were straight forward.

I think taking Longridge off was wrong. Miller had a mare and yet completed the match. Pittman was our top man yet again, he is the epitome of a team player.

The officials were abysmal, it was as if they had been told they had to ensure we didn't win the game. I still can't believe the number of clear fouls they got away with.

Yeah I know Mullen has a rep for going down easily but he was getting some full on american football hits wiping him out completely and Peterhead getting away with it.

Our best shots were straight at the keeper and some of our worst efforts seemed harder to miss than score with, sat there wondering how the ball didn't go in the net a few times with misses from 3 yards out. Would be worse if we were playing badly and not creating anything but we're still losing games and need to start scoring goals. Weird how the goals have dried up when we were scoring for fun up till the TNS game.

While we can't really blame the officials for us losing the game it nevertheless makes me so angry when they allow the cluggers to stifle those trying to play football. Peterhead shoved, barged, grabbed and held on to our players for 90 minutes because they were quickly aware that they were going to get away with it. They stole yards at every throw in yet our player was pulled up for it at one point.
It just wasn't our day. We got so near so many times but the ball just wouldn't go in.
That's Airdrie sneaked up right behind us now. Next week's cup game will be interesting. They've had 7 penalties so far this season. I hope we don't see number 8 but I wouldn't put money on it not happening.

So frustrating to take nothing from a game we dominated but couldnt take our numerous chances when they fell to us.Agree with Orco about the dubious officiating on show yesterday but hey we should be used to that by now.Big opportunity missed and you could see at the end of the game the players and supporters alike new it.Airdrie are creeping up behind us but i always thought that they would at some point.Anyways hope the team enjoyed their jolly over to Dublin last night but for me im sorry lads it left a bitter taste in my mouth and for once it wasnt down to the dodgy beer weve been served recently at the club.Dissapointed Livi!!!

Such a disappointing defeat yesterday. I actually thought up until they got their second that we were playing some of the best stuff we've played all season, minus the lack of finishing touch. Defence and shape went to pot as soon as their second went in, my main criticism of Hopkin is his tendency to throw caution to the wind when we're chasing a game, and have a plethora of attacking players on yesterday. We ended up with Mullen, Buchanan, Carrick, Knox and Cadden all vying for the same space on the pitch pretty much, the centre of the park was total powderpuff at this point. A better team would've picked us off far more efficiently.

Can't really fault the manager for much apart from that tbh, we were breaking them down but didn't take our chances. Unfortunate that De Vita was out, and that Carrick really doesn't look up to much, as we don't have anything else up front to mix it up otherwise.

Bollan used to do the same thing Afro, remember that Falkirk game when we were 3-0 down at HT and he took off a defender and put on a striker to just go for it, we pulled it level then lost a late goal to lose the game 4-3, that was some bloody game. I was nearly going home at HT thinking we'd be gubbed about 8-0 after seeing us in the first half, glad I stayed.

Problem is Carrick isn't showing the quality we need to make a difference when we're struggling, and Mullen has hit a bit of a dry spell, so we're totally relying on Buchanan just now. Up until 3 games ago we had 6 or 7 players scoring goals, for some reason they've all gone off the boil in our last 2 games.

Pittman has been playing deeper but is consistently our best player.
Miller is not prolific but chips in every half a dozen games or so.
Mullin and Cadden have lost the knack of finding the goal.
Mullen is still getting into positions but can't get it between the white bits.

On Saturday our problem was we lumped it forward when we could have played on the deck and we tried to play on the deck when the pitch was breaking up and we should have been playing it long.
Knox was never the sub to use at that stage of the game and Longridge should never have been subbed off earlier.
Hoppy is to blame for all of that.

Bertie Bassett wrote:Pittman has been playing deeper but is consistently our best player.
Miller is not prolific but chips in every half a dozen games or so.
Mullin and Cadden have lost the knack of finding the goal.
Mullen is still getting into positions but can't get it between the white bits.

On Saturday our problem was we lumped it forward when we could have played on the deck and we tried to play on the deck when the pitch was breaking up and we should have been playing it long.
Knox was never the sub to use at that stage of the game and Longridge should never have been subbed off earlier.
Hoppy is to blame for all of that.

Its difficult to disagree with anything there Bertie.

Hopkins has taken Longridge off in a couple of matches whilst trying to chase the game and we've ended up getting tanned. In the East Fife away match he even started with Longridge on the bench only bringing him on in the 75th minute when the game was all but over. Lithgow is far too slow (slower than Simon Mensing if that's possible) and cannot cover the whole left side. Dont get me wrong; Longridge does frustrate me sometimes in the way he can drift in and out of games but he is the fastest defender we've got by some margin.

Also starting the game with Byrne was an odd one. So far he's done very little to justify his position even ahead of the like of Sinclair.

Knox is simply too lightweight at this level; he gets barged off the ball too easily; his only real chance is to play one touch football but he seems all to keen to continually try to run with the ball, often across field, making him too easy to defend against. He's certainly not a game changer at this level so thought his inclusion at a stage of the game when we still had a chance smacked of giving up or desperation.

The formation towards the end of the game was truly baffling with Cadden playing in defence and Lithgow up front - did anyone really know what was going on?

Unfortunately yet again Creighton looked as shaky as f###; not too bad when we had four at the back but having change to three his reaction times were woeful.

Positives I can take from the game (and yes there were some); the linking play between Buchanan and Mullen in the first half was some of the best movement I've seen all season. Also thought Halkett had a pretty good game; I'm normally pretty critical of the guy but fair do's thought he did a fairly sterling job.