Livi v East Fife

We're 7 games undefeated in the league with 4 wins and 3 draws, and the last team to beat us in the league was....................yep you've guessed it, East Fife in a 2-1 away defeat. They're also the last team to have beaten us period, with the 1-0 cup defeat at home.

We've 10 games left to play and this is probably going to be our toughest, tbh i'd be happy with a draw, which would most likely see us 8 points clear of Alloa, can't see them dropping points against Stenny at home.

I'd make two changes to last night's starting line up,  i'd bring in Mullen along with Todorov and rest up Buchanan for him to come on for the last 20 mins or so, and swap Cadden for Longridge, reckon we'd be exposed at LB if Cadden is having to cover for Lithgow there..

I'd switch Longridge for Lithgow but we all know that won't happen.

Hadn't realised it was 7 unbeaten... Probably because it includes that woeful draw with Stranraer which felt like a defeat.

I suspect a sharing of the points & reckon there will be a few goals. 2-2 with FG in 22 mins

Seriously hope we wipe the floor with them though.

I actually reckon Hopkin will drop Millar and Buchanan for Mullin and Mullen. In a way, he's got to otherwise squad players won't see the point trying to put in performances and not be rewarded with starts. This will make it more of a 4-4-2 instead of the 5-3-2 that the team has been set up with recently. Expect Buchanan to make an impact when he comes on.


Livingston 3. East Fife 0. FG 32 mins.

1-1, FG 22 mins

Reckon this has the makings of a decent game.Think East Fife have probably exceeded their expectations for the season thus far but their up there on merit imo.Think big Toddy could cause them a few problems if he starts but knowing Hoppy he,ll probably change it around again.We are where we are for a reason.We are the best in this division,time to prove it Livi.Do it!!!

LiviCub wrote:I actually reckon Hopkin will drop Millar and Buchanan for Mullin and Mullen. In a way, he's got to otherwise squad players won't see the point trying to put in performances and not be rewarded with starts. This will make it more of a 4-4-2 instead of the 5-3-2 that the team has been set up with recently. Expect Buchanan to make an impact when he comes on.

Kelly

Crighton Halkett Gallagher Lithgow

Mullin Pittman Byrne Cadden

Todorov Mullen

Livingston 3. East Fife 0. FG 32 mins.

You can read Hopkin's substitutions like a book, Mullin for Millar was a certainty, not sure he'd start with both Cadden and Mullin though, prob go with Rafa if Millar is being benched, and bring Mullin in for Cadden to drop to the bench.

We'd all love Longridge to start at LB instead of Lithgow Bertie but you're right, it aint going to happen.

Feeling strangely confident here, i'll go for another 3-1 home league win over them, fg 17 mins.

Amazingly he did switch Longridge for Lithgow & to be honest I now wish he hadn't. Longridge wasted the ball far too often.

We were streets ahead of EF in terms of quality but they have done another smash & grab on us and the longer it remained 0-0 the more I could see it coming. Their goalie made two or three very good saves, can't believe the defender hooked that one off the line and they just threw themselves in front of everything with none of the rebounds or ricochets going our way.

I really can't grumble about our tempo today, I also thought we played to the condition of the pitch which looked worse at kick off than it did at full time on Tuesday & did so fairly effectively given the chances we had.

Todorov looked better in the first half but did nothing in the second other then be a presence.

Bad results all round so just as well we still have a 7 point lead

We were the better team by far but that as we saw that doesn't guarantee you anything. Absolutely nothing went our way. We hit the bar twice and had three cleared off the line as well as their goalie making a couple of very good saves. East Fife also took advantage of an inexperienced referee who had never heard of time wasting. Their goalie took all the time in the world to take goal kicks thus slowing down the momentum of the game. I couldn't believe the ref allowed him to delay a goal kick while his team mate was putting his boot back on. The two of them had a rare wee chat and the ref at no time stopped his watch.
It's a long time since I saw such a one sided match yet no points in the board.
To sum up I'm sick scunnered.

Yep I came away checking my pockets as I felt I had them picked.

Best we've played against them this season, pressed them all over the pitch and had a 2nd wave of players coming in to pick up every 2nd ball, but we just couldn't get that goal to open up the floodgates on them, just needed the first one and I reckon we'd have stuck 4 or 5 past them. Kinda felt it was coming too Bertie, they put in 2 or 3 balls across our box and had a couple of corners just before the free kick they scored from. They must've thought to themselves well we're still in it so lets see if we can nick the points.

Can't blame Hopkin either, put out the team I was wanting and brought on Cadden to play opposite Mullin, then Buchanan and Millar, had us playing a high tempo and working hard, but if it doesn't go in the net there isn't much he can do.

Even worse was seeing Alloa had nicked a win over Stenny, would've softened the blow of losing this game if Alloa had only gained one point. Just hope East Fife can get just as lucky against Alloa next week.

Agree with all of the above sumeries.You just new that they were going to get one chance near the end of the game and they took it.The less said about that so called playing surface the better.An absolute disgrace and an emmbarasment.Hopefully it wont have to come down to us relying on other teams to do us a favour here and there.With our squad we should able enough to see this out and claim what we hope will rightly be ours.Yes a bad day at the office for the Lions but we move on.

Couple of Livi fans on P&B saying we're getting a plastic pitch for next season, hope they're right. They've got sponsors for it.

Yet another routine win for The Mighty Methil Milan against Ferranti Thistle. Wipe the floor of us? The only floor you've ever wiped was the that of your crappy little factory down the Ferry Road. (Snigger)

The finishing let us down and their keeper was MOTM. For the last 25 minutes of the second half, we were punting the ball up in the hope Todorov would flick it on but they were all wasteful. Because of this, Byrne, Millar and Pittman were wasted as were the FBs, Mullin and Cadden. Some fans will criticise East Fife's tactics but I thought they were solid and had a game plan to frustrate us in every sense. I wouldn't mind seeing that next season if it meant a solid finish in the Championship.

A frustrating day but the job will get done with games to spare.

LiviCub wrote:The finishing let us down and their keeper was MOTM. For the last 25 minutes of the second half, we were punting the ball up in the hope Todorov would flick it on but they were all wasteful. Because of this, Byrne, Millar and Pittman were wasted as were the FBs, Mullin and Cadden. Some fans will criticise East Fife's tactics but I thought they were solid and had a game plan to frustrate us in every sense. I wouldn't mind seeing that next season if it meant a solid finish in the Championship.

A frustrating day but the job will get done with games to spare.

They didn't play like that in the previous 3 games they beat us, they were lucky more than tactically astute getting the win playing like that yesterday. Doubt we'd get away with it in the Championship trying those kind of tactics. You have to change tactics depending on who you're playing and we're obv the best team in the league so some teams set out to frustrate us and not allow the game to flow so we can't build up a rhythm, but East Fife out fought us in previous games and didn't allow us time on the ball, not sure why Smith needed to set them out so negatively this time but it got them the points so he wont be bothered. However I think they're better than that as previous games have shown.

Liviforever wrote:

LiviCub wrote:The finishing let us down and their keeper was MOTM. For the last 25 minutes of the second half, we were punting the ball up in the hope Todorov would flick it on but they were all wasteful. Because of this, Byrne, Millar and Pittman were wasted as were the FBs, Mullin and Cadden. Some fans will criticise East Fife's tactics but I thought they were solid and had a game plan to frustrate us in every sense. I wouldn't mind seeing that next season if it meant a solid finish in the Championship.

A frustrating day but the job will get done with games to spare.

They didn't play like that in the previous 3 games they beat us, they were lucky more than tactically astute getting the win playing like that yesterday. Doubt we'd get away with it in the Championship trying those kind of tactics. You have to change tactics depending on who you're playing and we're obv the best team in the league so some teams set out to frustrate us and not allow the game to flow so we can't build up a rhythm, but East Fife out fought us in previous games and didn't allow us time on the ball, not sure why Smith needed to set them out so negatively this time but it got them the points so he wont be bothered. However I think they're better than that as previous games have shown.

Playing the way they did on Saturday isn't down to luck, it's down to having a game plan which we clearly lacked in the last 25 minutes when we ran out of ideas. If you were at the cup game or the last game at Bayview, they done the same thing with Barry Smith in charge: take one of their very few chances to win the game and then sit back and soak up pressure for the rest of it.

LiviCub wrote:

Liviforever wrote:

LiviCub wrote:The finishing let us down and their keeper was MOTM. For the last 25 minutes of the second half, we were punting the ball up in the hope Todorov would flick it on but they were all wasteful. Because of this, Byrne, Millar and Pittman were wasted as were the FBs, Mullin and Cadden. Some fans will criticise East Fife's tactics but I thought they were solid and had a game plan to frustrate us in every sense. I wouldn't mind seeing that next season if it meant a solid finish in the Championship.

A frustrating day but the job will get done with games to spare.

They didn't play like that in the previous 3 games they beat us, they were lucky more than tactically astute getting the win playing like that yesterday. Doubt we'd get away with it in the Championship trying those kind of tactics. You have to change tactics depending on who you're playing and we're obv the best team in the league so some teams set out to frustrate us and not allow the game to flow so we can't build up a rhythm, but East Fife out fought us in previous games and didn't allow us time on the ball, not sure why Smith needed to set them out so negatively this time but it got them the points so he wont be bothered. However I think they're better than that as previous games have shown.

Playing the way they did on Saturday isn't down to luck, it's down to having a game plan which we clearly lacked in the last 25 minutes when we ran out of ideas. If you were at the cup game or the last game at Bayview, they done the same thing with Barry Smith in charge: take one of their very few chances to win the game and then sit back and soak up pressure for the rest of it.

Yeah they had a game plan, but come on, they were def lucky that it worked out so well. We almost went ahead in the first minute of the game when we hit the underside of the bar, Todorov headed past their keeper and a last ditch effort by a defender who just managed to hook it off the line to prevent a goal, there were numerous other efforts like that that they just got away with, you're not seriously telling me that wasn't them having a huge slice of luck. We were all over them and they hung on by their toe nails for most of the game, I doubt we'd get away playing like that in the Championship. It would only have taken one goal past them to open the floodgates.

I was at the cup game and they didn't play like that, EF pressured us a lot more in that game and didn't allow us time to look up and pick out a pass, and forced us into a lot of mistakes. It was only in the last 10 minutes we managed to pressure their goal.

There wont be any team in the Championship we need to fear anyway, Hibs will be going up and Dundee Utd are skint and in a mess, Falkirk will prob be the best team next season and we may have to be a bit more defensively set up against them, but not to the extent East Fife were. If we invited pressure on ourselves like that we'd never hold out. Besides, our fans would be going nuts watching us playing like that and not attacking, could you imagine the abuse the players and manager would be getting from the stands.