Livi v Stranraer

Could be a tough game for us with Stranraer having picked up a bit recently, drawing with East Fife and beating Rovers 3-0 last week, but we really need to be winning this game to give us a chance of extending our lead before playing Airdrie next week. This is our run of 3 games before playing QP & EF too, so we need to be taking 9 points from our next 3 games before playing those 2, to give ourselves a cushion.

Hopefully Danny is ok after going off against Alloa after a crunching tackle, but wouldn't mind seeing Buchanan and Todorov start and Dunny coming on as sub fresh against tired players in the 2nd half.

Think it could be tight with us scraping a 1 goal win but feck it, i'll let my heart rule my head and go for 3-1 Livi, fg 26 mins.

With the draw duck now broken, I can see a run of them happening, like buses, none for ages and then a few arrive together. As you have said, their form has improved.

Liv 1 Stran 1

FG 33mins

Livingston 2. Stranraer 0. FG 18 mins.

I dread to think what state our pitch will be in by the time we get to March, aint going to be pretty football in this game, so big Todorov should be useful for getting onto punts up the park.

1-1, FG 39 mins

On paper this has home banker written all over it but we know different dont we?.With the state of the pitch we cant expect to see any silky stuff tommorow and i reckon that could be a bit of a leveller for the away side .Having said that i hope we just get tore right in about them and stretch our lead at the top even further.Weather not looking to good for tonight but i hope the club let us know early if there are any concerns that might affect the game actually being on.Wrap up well as its going to be absolutely baltic but hey we are Livi fans so do your worst Mr hypothermia,we dont care!!!

Troy wrote:On paper this has home banker written all over it but we know different dont we?.With the state of the pitch we cant expect to see any silky stuff tommorow and i reckon that could be a bit of a leveller for the away side .Having said that i hope we just get tore right in about them and stretch our lead at the top even further.Weather not looking to good for tonight but i hope the club let us know early if there are any concerns that might affect the game actually being on.Wrap up well as its going to be absolutely baltic but hey we are Livi fans so do your worst Mr hypothermia,we dont care!!!

Speak for yourself, I've had a chest infection and been coughing and snottering all week, i'm only just starting to feel better and could do without it being freezing cold. Not that it'll stop me risking getting unwell again.

2-0 Livi if this beats the weather, FG 5 mins.

Fair Do,s L/F i had what youve had just after new year and i know it wasnt pleasant.It is going to be cold tommorow but like yourself it wont stop me going to the game if its on.As i said in my post wrap up well and possibly a hot drink may keep the chills away oh and a few Livi goals might help to warm us all up.LOL.Troy.

It's on... Wrap up warm.

Hopefully the players put in a performance that has us getting excited and generating internal heat.

Pretty rank today, could have played all night and never scored. What is going on with our pitch? Never seen it look so bad!

Character building watching that today, didn't do much to help my chest infection either, I must be mad.

Stranraer snuffed out Cadden pretty well on the wing, and dealt with Mullen in the middle of the pitch too, by mostly fouling him, but again were allowed to get away with it by the ref. Just knew we'd pick up the first card after he let them off with 3 yellow card offences. They managed to play the ball about a lot better than us in the first half too, tattie field or not, Stranraer played a lot better on it than us.

2nd half was a lot better, and we had several chances to score, Buchanan's 1 on 1 was the final and best chance of the game, just knew it was finishing 0-0 after he missed that one. Bit of a missed opportunity to go another 3 clear with Airdrie and Alloa not playing, now we'll have to beat Rovers as we haven't a game in hand anymore.

Thought Rafa and Mullin made a decent impact on the game but I would've liked to have seen Todorov on too, just to make a change up front to see if it would've got us a goal.

Still think we're struggling down the wings only having Cadden on as our only wing player, Stranraer sussed that out right from the start and had him marked well, he was having to play as a LB too at times bringing the ball out of defence and up the wing, we're suffering in attack because of this.

Can't disagree with any of that LF, pretty much my take on the game. Some of the offside decisions were woeful as well.

We managed to get some pressure building up in the last 20 mins but were always at risk of a counter attack and after Halkett's booking it would have made more sense for someone else to be the last defender as he was at risk of getting a second yellow. That said he coped with it well and was our best player today as far as I'm concerned.

I though Belford was the actual MotM though, he made some vital saves to keep us out.

Yeah I think the only reason Halkett got the yellow was the ref awarding us a throw in, and then after the Stranraer bench berating him he changed his decision and awarded Stranraer the throw in, that caught us off guard with most of our players heading out of defence for the throw in going our way and Halkett was left having to take one for the team to stop a potential goal threat. Him and Gallagher looked comfortable enough all game up till then, and afterwards too really.

Didn't even think Mullen's tackle was a foul let alone a booking, he knocked the ball off their player and didn't touch him, couldn't believe the yellow card, or the award of a foul. I think that's the worst ref we've had this season, and that's saying something the bad performances I've seen from refs.

Halkett and Gallagher look a cracking CB pairing, pity Gallagher wants to head down South next season to start afresh. However makes you wonder WTF Hopkin will plan for our defence if we're in the Championship, will Longridge still be here and if so is he actually going to get a game at LB or will Hopkin keep playing CB's as our back 4!!!!!!!

I think Mullen got the yellow card for dissent.

Not as bad a decision as a yellow for a non existent foul then, just a booking for complaining to the ref for him being a dick giving a foul when it wasn't.

Just glad this game is out of the way and wasn't postponed, dreadful conditions to be playing football in and being expected to provide entertainment to a crowd of fans, but at least we got a point from it and moved 11 points clear, and can chalk another game off. Just 15 games left to play now, only need to win half of those and we'd reach enough points to win the league.

Cant remember the last time ive been totally baltic for a whole 90 mins of a game.Not unlike last week when we never took the chances that fell to us.It must have been so frustrating for both sets of players having to try and play decent football on that disgracefull surface although Stranraer seemed to adapt to it better than us especially in that first half.They got what they came for and good luck to them for that.Agree about the comments made about the abuse Hopkin was taking in that second half.though they will say that they pay their money and thus are entitled to voice their oppinions.Reckon they went a wee bit over the top on this occasion and maybe felt a wee bit silly after the game.As ive said before we have this situation in our own hands and will only have ourselves to blame if we balls it up however unlikely that may seem.Massive game at Airdrie next week where we really could put this to bed.More on that later in the week.

One final comment from me on this game... I was hugely disappointed by Cadden. Gave up far too easily and far too often. One incident in the first half, Miller had the ball but Cadden stood still instead of moving to give him an option. Very poor. I reckon he could have taken the right back to the cleaners if he had bothered to get involved. The fastest he moved all day was when he got subbed, looked like he couldn't wait to get off the park.

He did have to come deeper than he ideally wants to be on occasion but that's no excuse for not getting involved when the chance to go forward was there.

That was the only time I can remember him doing that Bertie, know exactly the incident you're talking about as I said the same thing to a mate, Miller and Cadden were arguing about it afterwards. Don't agree with you that he was like that all game though, thought he ran up and down working his socks off and tracked back to put in tackles when he lost the ball too, didn't see him being lazy, or not looking interested.
I thought he could've learnt from being challenged by Pettigrew all game though, and flicked the ball past him instead of trying to turn with the ball to beat him, because Pettigrew was on him like a flash all game and just stuck his leg/foot out to block the ball every time Cadden turned with it. If he'd just flicked it up past him and ran onto it he'd have got past him.

Credit to Stranraer who actually had a good game plan of giving it a go for the first half then realising what they were up against in the second. Can't fault them for being a bit more defensive in the second half because the state of the pitch would've meant more tired legs. Any other day most of our chances would've went in.

And (in my opinion) it's a fairly straightforward solution to solving the issue which Hopkin doesn't seem to grasp about the full back/wingers debate: either play a 3-5-2 (which I personally don't think we're comfortable in) with two natural wingers i.e. Mullin and Longridge/Cadden. Or two players who are COMFORTABLE in a FB position i.e. Halkett/Crighton and Longridge and two wingers who are COMFORTABLE in those positions i.e. Mullin and Cadden. So many times yesterday Cadden was getting sandwiched between two Stranraer players with no support because Lithgow is incapable of playing wide and going past the half way line. And Crighton was going up and down the line with very limited options, meaning he wasn't able to get as many crosses in or find decent passes.

That's the kind of thing I mean LF, when he gets fouled he loses interest (Brechin game is a prime example, he was ripping up that wing for fun, eventually got clearly kicked and his opponent got booked & he never took him on again for the rest of the game) or if he fails to beat his man he doesn't work out as you did (I noticed the same thing BTW) that he could flick it past and beat him for speed. He looked more concerned about having to run on muddy bits of pitch & disinclined to try.

He is one of the most skilfull wingers we've had for a while when he is in the mood but has a tendency to disappear if he gets fouled. He got injured at Meadowbank when he pulled back on a challenge instead of committing to it, which often happens. He has pace, skill, can deliver a good ball and has a powerful shot but he lacks "heart" when the going gets tough, if he can sort out that aspect of his game he could go a long way.

Yeah i remember the Meadowbank injury, if he'd gone in fully committed he'd most likely have been fine, but he shirked out of it and ended up getting the worst of it because he had pulled out, and only going in half hearted. Brechin were dirty fecks in that game, they were getting away with it though so it worked for them, well to a certain extent, they still got humped 3-0.

Can say what you like about Mullen going down too easily etc, but he never stops trying and keeps on giving it his all against big CB's. Although up till this season he'd sit on his arse complaining and wasn't getting stuck in as much to try and win the ball, so maybe Cadden will learn and improve, think he's still only 19.

Aye, Danny has stepped up this season, still can go over too easily but he has stayed on his feet more and caused defences problems even when he hasn't scored as a result.

Hopefully Cadden will toughen up as he gets older because he really does have a lot to offer if his head is right. Mullin doesn't have his pace or a trick in his repertoire that Cadden can produce but he isn't afraid of a tackle.