Airdrie v Livi

Okay the draws stop here, lets get back to beating the top 4 teams and extend our lead to 14 points. Hopefully Alloa will draw with QP too and East Fife gub Brechin, just to throw all those teams into a fight with one another while we move away out of their reach.

Plastic pitch too so nae excuses about not being able to pass the ball. 3-1 Livi win, fg 14 mins.

Livingston 4. Airdrie 1. FG 22 mins. We've been due to give someone a good thumping for a while and this will be it, even when Hopkin won't change anything to the line up.

We are also overdue a defeat by one of our promotion rivals & Airdrie have also been dumped out of the cup by us. Revenge is on the cards.

Air 2 Liv 1

FG 31 mins

Think this is going to be a lot closer than our previous meetings this season.anything other than a defeat would do me.no doubt big Simon Mensing will be up for this as will Beany but if we can get all but crucial first goal i feel we can finnally put Airdrie well enough behind us to do any damage to our pending success in this campaigne.Over to you Livi .Do it!!!

2-0 Livi, FG 27 mins

Crighton with the opener in 34 mins (looks like I'm getting the goal time bonus) 1-0 Livi at half time.

C'mon Livi!!

Love it when my predictions are blown away.... 4-0 , OG, Mullen & Cadden scoring with subs prominent in the 3rd & 4th goals. So kudos to Hoppy for good sub usage.

Sadly Alloa look like they are going to win but we are in a stronger position now than we were at kick off and you can't complain about that.

Footballing masterclass from Livi in the 2nd half, best game of the season from Livi.

Longridge on in LM was a surprise, looked far better with him in the team and a lot more comfortable in defence with Longridge covering the LB position too. All 4 CB's played a blinder, Halkett just shaves it for me though, won everything that came his way, best I've seen from Lithgow and Crighton all season too. Gallagher looked a bit off the pace at times but made up for it with great tackling, read he'd had a touch of flu so that would explain him going off and looking a bit shaded.

Crighton's goal was a fecking peach, came just after Beany got away with stamping studs up on Longridge's le, and was the perfect reply to those Airdrie mongs booing Longridge for being fouled. Feck knows how Beany never got a yellow, looked a straight red card for dangerous play.

2nd half was something else from Livi, 2nd goal onwards we bossed it, quite funny when Beany's goal wasn't given for offside too, esp with the Airdrie fans still celebrating. Mullen's goal was superb, good play leading up to it too, and the build up play and finish for Cadden's goal was equally good. Was bursting for the big man to score, held off 3 defenders and got in on goal, only to drag his shot wide, looks a good addition to our squad though, big strong lad. Rafa had a good impact on the game as well, ripped Airdrie a new one at times with his skill, and got a player booked for losing the heid and kicking him. Dunno what the Airdrie player was thinking getting sent off for a punch, c**** had lost the plot by then.

We really need to get a plastic pitch next season, much, much better seeing us play on Airdrie's pitch today, compared to our tattie field last week.

I don't like artificial pitches but we have scored 4 in both league matches there. So if we are better on plastic then let's do it.

Not long back from the game and i have to say that last 20 mins was some of the best football ive seen from a Livi team in many a year.Without getting carried away there was an arrogance about our play and some of the showboating was a joy to behold.3 of the 4 goals were exceptionally executed though only sore point from was Beanies pole axing of Jackson Longridge just prior to Chrightons thunderbolt to open the scoring.Unecsesery and he should have known better.The fact that Airdrie imploded is not only down to themselves but mostly due to the magnificent way Livi went about their buisness in that second half.Credit must go to Hoppy and his team for manufacturing the way we got this result and the manner that we did it in.Cant wait for Tuesday night although like everyone else im not looking forward to seeing that pitch again.Well done LIVI and dont let a tattie feild stand in your way!!!

Bertie Bassett wrote:I don't like artificial pitches but we have scored 4 in both league matches there. So if we are better on plastic then let's do it.

Once we got used to the bounce of the ball we played some fantastic passing football, 2nd half esp we were sublime. Just wait till you see our 3rd and 4th goals, lovely build up play, passing and movement. We were showboating a bit with the moves we were doing but it was a joy to watch. We just can't play like that on our pitch the state it is in, and really doesn't give us any advantage playing at home when we have to adapt from our usual game to long balls over the top on our tattie field. Was night and day today from last week.

Can't think of a more appropriate team in our division to showboat against

Liquid football always triumphs. Get us a 3G park, Craig Halkett on an extended contract and get amber and black ribbons on the title.

LiviCub wrote:Livingston 4. Airdrie 1. FG 22 mins. We've been due to give someone a good thumping for a while and this will be it, even when Hopkin won't change anything to the line up.

Almost with the score, like me you didn't have confidence on us keeping a clean sheet, although that's 3 in our last 4 games.

Good shout for the 'we've been due to give someone a good thumping for a while and this will be it' prediction. Not quite a clean sweep though as Hopkin brought in Jacko at LM/LB.

Since Gallagher came into the team and Hopkin went with 4 CB's in defence we've kept 3 clean sheets and conceded 5 goals in 6 games (3 wins-2 draw-1 defeat). He's certainly tightened things up in defence, up until this game though I thought it was at the expense of our attack, that theory went right out the window after knocking 4 past Airdrie.

Absolutely delighted with that win. One of those days where everything just goes right, a lovely wee red card to top it off.

Rafa coming on and pegging one of their players twice was a personal highlight.

Delightful.

Yep Hoppy's substitutions were bang on the money this week, Rafa and Cadden ran riot when they came on, Airdrie players couldn't handle them, and Todorov had a big impact too (pun intended). Some diagonal pass from the halfway line up to Mullen on the edge of the box for our 3rd goal, and powered his way through their defence a couple of times to get a shot at goal.

Rafa's cross was right on Cadden's napper for our 4th goal too, and big Tod that played it onto Rafa after holding the Airdrie defender off, great when the substitutions work so well.

Airdrie have the highlights up, it is on Vimeo though so doesn't work loading it up on here, you'll have to click on the link. https://vimeo.com/204750193


I think the guy doing the highlights missed a trick with Wilson's post match interview, would've sounded much better with some violin music playing over it.

Decent stuff. Airdrie clearly had some chances without making us work too hard to defend them. Good finishes from us - good predatory instincts from Gorman for the og - would like to see the footage they claim to have seen showing their "scorer" being on side. Can't see too much wrong with the red card decision. Cadden is on the receiving end of kicks with the perpetrator getting away with it, so good to see the ref doing the right thing. Wilson being an ex-Celtic defender probably can't understand that kicking an opponent is actually worthy of a red.

Liviforever wrote:Yep Hoppy's substitutions were bang on the money this week, Rafa and Cadden ran riot when they came on, Airdrie players couldn't handle them, and Todorov had a big impact too (pun intended). Some diagonal pass from the halfway line up to Mullen on the edge of the box for our 3rd goal, and powered his way through their defence a couple of times to get a shot at goal.

Rafa's cross was right on Cadden's napper for our 4th goal too, and big Tod that played it onto Rafa after holding the Airdrie defender off, great when the substitutions work so well.

Airdrie have the highlights up, it is on Vimeo though so doesn't work loading it up on here, you'll have to click on the link. https://vimeo.com/204750193


I think the guy doing the highlights missed a trick with Wilson's post match interview, would've sounded much better with some violin music playing over it.

The interview is hilarious; sour grapes really doesn't do it justice.

Notice when he was claiming their "goal" was well on-side certainly the highlights would appear the contrary to be true) he failed to mention that Russell should not even been on the field of play having just had treatment from the physio on the pitch.
.

Aye and his stamp into Longridge with his studs should've had a red card too, or at least a yellow, which would've got him sent off when he got another yellow later on when he kicked Byrne. He went about the whole game kicking our players and moaning at anyone standing near him.

Can't really see his offside goal but it looks close and Crighton had his arm up right away, not that players claiming offside is a true indication right enough, most try that as much in hope as anything else, but it was a tight call which may very well have been correct. We've had offside calls that were def wrong though so I don't really care, and I believe we'd still have won the game comfortably even if they did get a goal back. Wilson can't seriously believe there isn't much between the two teams when we've easily beaten them 4 times now. Even their fans on P&B admit we've been the better team in every game against them.

Best performance I've seen us put in this season, and the most enjoyable game I've been to in a while. First half was fairly even I thought, I think Longridge at LM was a touch conservative and perhaps that lent itself to the contest, but a deserved lead at HT. If a centre-half has hit a ball better I'd like to see it. A sumptuous strike from Crighton and he's been decent at RB, more than happy to have him fill in there until next season. Second half display was a different kettle of fish, once we got the second goal Airdrie simply collapsed and some of the football was refreshing from us. Third goal would not have looked out of place in any league in Europe, and the fourth was good in the respect that two of the subs combined well (aye, even Todorov). Credit to the players and DH because that's the fourth time we've horsed Airdrie with a bit to spare I think.

I know it seems strange saying this as we've beaten them 4 times, but Airdrie (and Alloa) have looked the best two teams we've played, the way they move the ball around and their direct style of play. Maybe it just suits us having an open game where we can overpower teams.

I'd love to play QP on Airdrie's pitch though to see if it made a difference, or even East Fife for that matter, their plastic pitch def gives them a home advantage because they know exactly how to play on it, the little quirks of the bounce etc, but Airdrie's seems to suit us quite well.
At first we were getting caught out trying to get a foot on the ball to bring it down, and Airdrie players were anticipating us doing that and running past taking the ball off us, but then we got used to it and started doing the same thing to them.

Look how much of an advantage Accies got from their plastic pitch when they won the old 1st div, don't think they lost a game on it that season. I really think the way we like to play football would benefit from getting a 3G pitch.

Maybe I should've put this post on the plastic pitch thread, but i'm on a roll now so i'll keep going on this one. Just this week I've seen Tynecastle and Parkheid being mentioned as having poor looking pitches, yet the minute you say to these managers about playing on one they come out with the same tired phrases, 'a good grass pitch is better than a plastic pitch' or 'you get injuries playing on it'. For me with these new pitches I just think that's lazy excuses, and isn't true.

For one, the good grass pitches don't exist in winter time, all pitches are under stress and the growing season is finished so they can't do anything but patch them up, so that old chestnut is invalid as an argument against plastic pitches.

The injuries would need proper research, but I really don't believe it, you don't hear the teams who have actually got a plastic pitch saying their players are suffering injuries anymore than teams playing on grass, it's always the ones that play on grass that come out with it.