Livi v Stenny

Goals seem to be at a premium just now so not expecting us to score 4 again, like we have in our prev two games against Stenny, 3 goals would do though.


I think Rafa will be available again, so will prob start on the wing instead of Mullen playing there, don't think we particularly need a big striker up front against Stenny though, Mullen & Buchanan have both scored in prev games against them. Hopefully we get an early goal to build on and another comfortable win. Mon the Lions, lets get another win.

Livi 3-0 Stenny, fg 12 mins.

We might play with Todorov though because of the pitch. It may be necessary to lump it forward rather than trying to play through the furrows.

Much as I'd love to see us show why we are top and they are bottom, I suspect McMenamin to be falling over as soon as one of our players is within 3 feet of him and the ref to be conned as usual, what is all the more frustrating about that is that he never got any decisions when he played for us but regularly gets them playing against us.

Liv 2 Sten 1

FG 34 mins

1-0 Livi, FG 40 mins

Getting a bit of everything with the weather today, forecast is light snow and then a heavy snow shower overnight though, so isn't looking good for this game being on.

Would be gobsmacked if this game gets the go ahead.The pitch is probably already sodden and with whats still to come in the next 24 hours it doesnt bode well for tommorow night.Nevertheless if its on and i sincerely hope the club make an early decision rather than fannying about till 6 30 7 00ish il be there to hopefully see a home win and tighten the grip at the top of the table.Weather permitting Do it Livi!!!

Not looking very promising at the moment that's for sure.

Good couple of inches overnight in Murieston. As you drive further north of Livingston it doesn't seem as bad. Still can't see this being on after yesterdays weather too.

The forecast was spot on but I doubt we had covers down, prob not enough bodies. Dunno why we have them though they haven't been used this season. I used to work on tenements in Glasgow stripping old slates off and re roofing them, and had to put tarpaulins over the roof every night during the worst of the winter weather so we could protect it from the snow and get working the next day, there was only 3 of us too, dunno why it is too difficult to get them down on a football pitch.

Albion Rovers are asking for a pitch inspection at 1pm, no news on our twitter of us having one so perhaps they did put the covers down and are confident of the game being on, if so then well done to our grounds staff, I live in hope of it being on.


Edit.

Latest twitter update on the pitch:

Livingston FC @LiviFCOfficial
UPDATE: precautionary pitch inspection due at 4pm ahead of tonight's @StenhousemuirFC game.

I'm sure the players were in yesterday for training. A squad and coaching staff of at least twenty surely could've put down the covers?

Weather is looking good now, the sun has cleared away all the snow in my garden and street, with our pitch though it isn't just a case of clearing the snow away.

If you look at footage of games a few years back and see the state of pitches in the 90's and 00's and nobody bothered much about pitches being a state. Even remember Chelsea's pitch having no grass and being covered completely in sand not that long ago. We've got hell of a precious about pitch surfaces having to be perfect.

Only in Scotland would the weather go from one extreme to the next in the space of less than half a day...

Livingston 3. Stenhousemuir 1. FG 18 mins.

I would also expect Hopkin to make some changes again as this game is sandwiched between Stranraer and Airdrie. Lets face it, Stenny have made a few shock results, but we should be rolling these lot over. We need the fresh legs more for the Airdrie game than tonight.

Aye maybe not a good idea to start all our strikers and rest one of them till about 70 mins.Could even start Todorov and Rafa up front and bring on Buchanan and Mullen 2nd half, or vice versa, get a couple of goals then sub Buchanan and Mullen to rest them up.

Would like to see Sinclair in the midfield for this one and Rafa up front; with respect to Stenny we should be dispatching this lot no bother then moving on to a big game on Saturday.

Three-zip to the team in black and yellow, FG 40 mins.

Team sheet up on twitter.



Getting worried now, Byrne is banned for 5 games isn't he? Don't tell me we're going to play him and get hit with a points deduction.

Apparently we've appealed Byrne's ban and are able to play him till the appeal is heard.

We made hard work of that game, could easily have been 5 nil up at HT and a few more in the 2nd half, was a nervy end with us dropping deep to see out the game 1-0 but we got there and are still 9 clear with another game chalked off. Just need to rattle 4 past Airdrie on Sat to make up for all the misses tonight.

Pretty well summed it up there LF, we should have had them buried in the first and the first 15 in the second. When Hoppy started messing about with the subs we began to lose our way and handed the initiative to them. Luckily they never really threatened our goal. At this stage of the season it's the 3 points that matter most and we got them. All the more important given Alloa's late winner at Brechin.

It wasn't pretty in the second half but we're seeing out games at the most crucial time of the season. Although we were rolling teams over at the start, we were failing to keep clean sheets. I'd much rather see us perform the latter than the former. In this case, it was only poor finishing which let us down.

And as much as I'm not Hopkin's biggest fan, the person (I won't call him out as a 'fan') had no right to shout abuse to a guy who's near enough met his objective for the club with plenty of games to spare.

Interesting stat that andylivi put up on P&B, we've  only lost 3 of our last 12 games and the 3 games we've lost have all been to East Fife. Really hope to feck they don't win the play offs, i'm sick of them beating us.

Looking at the fixtures and results on the OS too, i'd say we dropped points to Stranraer at home with the 0-0 draw, the loss to East Fife and the draw away to Alloa when we should've won all 3 of those games, that would've given us another 7 points and we'd be 17 in front of Alloa (with them getting their draw against us taken off).

We're on the exact same form as Alloa though on the BBC league table chart, which has a colour chart showing the last 10 results, both of us have had 6 wins, 3 draws and 1 defeat.
They've been jammy buggers getting late goals to scrape wins and that goal to draw with us too, which started their good run of form. Or some would say that's the sign of a champions, only they're not winning the league, we are.
We've been pushed at the start of the season though with Alloa's great start and now at the end with the form they've hit, so Hopkin deserves a lot of credit for keeping up with them at the start, and then getting ahead and staying there.

Would agree that last night was bordering on frustration with the numerous oppertunities that fell to us especially in that first half to wipe the floor with Stenny.Masterclass from big Decs again and i thought Josh put a heelluva shift in.As ive said many times recently points are more important at this stage rather than performances,we can start to go on performances once the title is in the bag.Think the least said about the ejjitt giving dogs abuse to the manager the better,suffice to say he.s gonna owe a groveling apolgy to Mr Hopkin along with a few others at the end of the season.Nuff said.

Interesting stats #2

East Fife have taken 9 points off us
Queens Park have taken 7 points off us.

That 16 points lost to the promoted teams in 7 games. Even if we had taken 8 of those points we'd be 17 points clear with 21 points left to be won.

As it is, if we lose once before we play Alloa & they keep winning & they beat us, there will only be 3 points in it. So a 9 point lead is by no means a guarantee of winning the league.

That said I'd rather be 9 points in front than 9 behind

Warriors TV


That shot of the crowd looks grim, you don't realise how little folk there is when you're sitting in the stand.

Dunno why big Toddy didn't head that ball instead of trying to volley it, was perfect height for him and doubt he'd have missed if he had. Good header for his goal though, keeper had no chance.

Nah, it was a lucky header, he didn't get it as cleanly as he wanted, it bounced far too close to him but the bounce (it bounced awkwardly not cleanly) fooled the keeper and the defender wasn't too clever in trying to stop it going in. But I'll take any kind of good luck as the season draws to its climax