Pars v Livi

I feel we owe them a gubbing after dropping 2 points against them in a game we were clearly the better team, still bugs the hell out of me that game.

Dunfermline have hit a wall recently, they were scoring for fun but now can't buy a goal, that can all change in a game though so not taking them lightly, and that wee shite Ryan is a certainty to come on and score against us.

Play our usual game and this should be another 3 points and 5 wins in a row for the Amber machine. Gallagher will be back so Toddy can move up front with Mullen,  Pitts and Byrne and then doesn't really matter who the rest of our midfield are, they all play well.

3-1 to Livi, FG 17 mins.


................................................Alexander


.....................Gallagher                  Halkett                     Lithgow


.... Mullin.............................................................................. Longridge

 .................... Byrne                 Pittman                    Penrice


...................................... Mullen                Todorov

In every season there will be a team that no matter how well we play they will scunner us. Prepare to be scunnered. I have a feeling Dunvermine will be our bogey side this season.

DAFC 2 LFC 1

Fg 27 mins

Was more annoyed at us dropping 2 points due to the ref falling for Cardle's diving, and Mullen's penalty miss. Would be really freaky if they keep getting dodgy penalties against us, and we keep missing penalties for them to draw or beat us every time we play them.  

Can see us giving them an absolute humping on Saturday, somebody is due one from us, may as well be Dunfermline that gets it.

Dunfermline 2. Livingston 0. FG 37 mins.

1-1, FG 60 mins.

Simmilar scenario as last week for me,ie anything other than a defeat will do for me to keep that all important momentum going.East End Park is a tough place to go to at the best of times and they seem to have had a wee blimp recently.Im not getting sucked into that im afraid.As well as ourselves they are not in the top 4 for nothing and as such will be hard nut to crack.Yes we should have gubbed them on our previous encounter but that counts for nothing now imo.If we play to the top of our game then i see no reason why we cant bring back the points over the right side of the Queensferry Crossing.Do it Livi!!!

Interesting stat of the day; this is the 36th league meeting between the sides... In the 35 previous games Dunfermline have won 12, there have been 12 draws & Livingston have won 11.

And it's the 21st, 12 backwards.

2-1 to the Livi
FG 37 minutes

I can only assume we are not playing well and the Pars are. It's been a very long time since we were 3 behind at half time.

Park the bus for the second half & limit the damage.

So 3-1 defeat... Definitely our bogey team at the minute... That might change if we lose in Paisley where we usually win. We have Brechin next week, they don't seem to be getting whipped albeit they are losing most weeks.

First goal was a fluke after Longridge hit a short passback to Alexander and then put his body in front of the Pars player to slow him down but Alexander blasted the ball off him and into our net, hindsight he should've just side footed it out for a throw in but it was Longridge's fault for the poor passback.

2nd goal was well played with a dummy to get a yard on us over by the wing, then cutting inside and doing the same again to open up our defence for a shot at goal, well put away by Aird and a great individual goal.

3rd goal was just shocking defending leaving Higginbotham with about 5 seconds to pick his spot with absolutely no Livi player near him, again well put away but we were all over the place by then.

Hoppy got his team selection wrong, we were knocking long balls up to Danny and Dale and were being outmuscled, we desperately needed Toddy up front and Gallagher on in defence. Fair play to Hoppy for changing it at the start of the 2nd half but maybe should've done so quicker when we went 2-0 down.

Dunfermline weathered the storm when we went at them and had a couple of close ones hitting us on the counter, we had to keep going for it though as was no point playing safe at 3nil down. Much better 2nd half but we just couldn't get the breaks with balls not dropping for us and last ditch defending from Dunfermline. We finally broke through and Danny scored to give the fans a lift to get behind the team and should've had a penalty too but the fecking lino gave offside so the penalty didn't stand, almost scored again when we got through too but it stopped agonisingly close just before going in.

Just have to take it on the chin, it didn't go for us today with team selection and tactics but Hoppy rectified it 2nd half and we got a goal to give everyone a wee lift. Funnily I left feeling quite positive and know we can do better. All the other results went our way too so we drop to 3rd swapping places with Dunfermline, no real damage done, just have to get back to our usual selves next week and beat Brechin.

Funnily enough when I saw the line up I thought it was the wrong team for this game. Especially with Gallagher back. I also thought that Keags should have been in the side as IMO our midfield plays better with him in the side.

Also, the stats putting is in Europes top ten form sides simply made us a target & gave Dunfermline something else to motivate them.

Let's see how we respond to this setback, hopefully by scoring a barrow load against Brechin.

I thought Keaghan maybe should be on but looking at how it panned out I think Hoppy made the correct changes, Gallagher and McMillan made a huge difference in defence, McMillan also getting down the right wing for attacks, and Rafa added flair in attack too, plus Toddy going up front gave us much needed muscle for balls through the middle for him to hold up play for Mullen, Rafa and Pittman to get up to support him.

Jacko had an off game and Mullin/Toddy on the right side were being mugged by Aird, that was a glaring weakness we needed to fix but we went 3-0 down before doing so. Maybe a tad harsh right enough, the first goal was a freak/fluke goal and their keeper pulled off an incredible point blank save, so it just didn't seem to go our way for us to be 1-0 down, but the 2nd and 3rd goals exposed our weakness due to our team selection.

The surface was slippy at feck too, a lot of slips knackered us when trying to move quickly, resulting in having to stretch to regain control of the ball and momentum was lost. It isn't so much an excuse as an annoyance because the surface looked immaculate until we started playing on it.

Kinda cliché but Dunfermline were in a rut struggling for goals and the goal they needed to get them going came from a complete fluke, but those are just the kind of goals struggling teams get and then they gain that bit of confidence to start banging them in. Can't take anything away from their win, disappointing for us but they deserved it and we'd have been over the moon had we won 3-1.

Aye, I think the changes he made were the right ones in the circumstances but IMO he needed to start with the right line up and while Toddy has done well at the back he is not better than our real defenders. Carrick & Mullen are both good at putting defences under pressure but we must play to their strengths especially against bigger defenders, which we tend not to do. It works when we get the ball over the top like Lithgow's ball to Mullen last week and the similar pass that went to Rafa when he hit the post but if it's just a big lump up the park from the back then we need a big lump up the park to be able to challenge for it & hold the play up so that it doesn't come straight back. We all know Mullen does better than most his size in the air but he is more dangerous with the ball at his feet.

If we want to play with 2 wee guys that thrive on the deck then we need good passers in midfield.

Can't be overly critical though because his team selection has worked well in the previous 5 or 6 games.

Wow didnt see that coming but i guess our wee run had to come to an end some time..Neils misfortune so early in the game kind of set the tone for a torrid first 45 mins for us.Really cant complain to much as we are still in the top four with a couple of winnable games on the horizon for us.We know we,re better than that and hopefully Hoppy and the lads will get this out of their systems by putting this down as the prevebial bad day at the office and bounce back against a dogged Brechin side next week.

The team with Toddy in defence worked well last week so you can understand why he kept it. However Dunfermline played a lot better than Dundee United and it didn't have the same effect.
It was painful to watch that first goal rebound into the goals and to be honest we didn't really recover from it. We seemed a bit spooked for a while.
I think we have stopped being the surprise package now and teams are going to be upping their game. Dunfermline did what we usually do so well and closed us down all over the park.
In the games where we've drawn or lost so far I've felt we were better than or as good as the opposition but yesterday we looked second best. I think Dunfermline gave us our hardest game so far and will go on to win the league on yesterday's showing.

The first goal where the ball came off Higginbotham and back into our net happened to Dunfermline too, but it didn't have enough pace to go into their goal and their keeper managed to get back and catch it before it went in the net, that kinda summed up our day. Things went for them and didn't for us.

Liviforever wrote:The first goal where the ball came off Higginbotham and back into our net happened to Dunfermline too, but it didn't have enough pace to go into their goal and their keeper managed to get back and catch it before it went in the net, that kinda summed up our day. Things went for them and didn't for us.

Yeh that's how I felt even during the game. Bad bounces, slips, and of course the usual ref and linesman decisions. It just wasn't our day, but to be fair there's been a few games this season when we did get the rub of the green (officials apart of course ).

Next week will be important to get us back on track. It probably won't be easy to break down Brechin though who will sit in for a point (or 3 )

Just watched the highlights, wasn't easy but I wanted to have a better look at their goals, and it was confirmed, Mullin and Toddy were the weak links for the 2nd and 3rd goals, Mullin gets beaten on the wing for both of them and Toddy was the player in the box both shots went past for the goals. Not having digs at them as they've both been fantastic for us but Dunfermline must've noticed a weakness there and exploited it yesterday.

If the game had ended at half time yesterday I'd have been apoplectic, encouraged a fair bit more after the second half performance. Said just before kick off to my pal that the line-up was maybe slightly too naive from Hopkin and I was disappointingly proved right. I'm a big fan of Todorov now but without any real cover from out wide on his side he looked off it a bit; given how well McMillan played in the second half and how generally solid we looked with Gallagher, I'd be more than happy with playing that system in away matches like this. Really rate Mullin but I just don't feel like he has the defensive discipline and awareness to be really effective against sides like Dunfermline.

First goal was a freak one tbf, most other times Neil's kick is slightly wider or he's under it a bit more, and it's cleared. Just didn't settle after that (despite very nearly equalising) and the second just killed us. Third is a terrific finish but we showed them too much space, which is immensely disappointing given how well we've played so far this season. Taking it in isolation, I can truly say we've only had two stinking halves of football in the league this season - second half away to Brechin (still should have won), and the first half yesterday (shouldn't have conceded the first and should have equalised right away). Provides a bit of perspective imo.

Quick word on the fans: first of all, great to see a relatively large number head up. Sadly, that's really as good as it got. I've got no problems with folk venting frustration at getting skelped 3-0 after 35 minutes, I was myself, but the feeling I've always had with our fans is that they cannot wait for something to get het up about. The first quarter was nigh-on perfect for a promoted team like ourselves, one defeat after a horrible first half doesn't suddenly make us a shite team. Also, shout out to the experts on this team who came out the woodwork and started imparting knowledge upon all and sundry; I suppose the saving grace from yesterday is that they'll bugger back off to the shops next Saturday.

I read comments about the fans on other forums, I was sitting down about halfway, which was near the front of the section taped off for us and never heard any derisive calls, so hopefully our players didn't either.

Thought we (our fans) were quite encouraging and got behind the players when we scored, felt like the fans were bursting for us to score so we could urge the players on.
I joined in clapping the players as I was leaving too, not a happy clapper type but felt we finished the game on a positive note and the players deserved some encouragement for the great season we're having, and to try and get them back up for the Brechin game.

Big Toddy was as frustrated as the fans, when he headed a corner over he let out a loud yell of rage at missing, we all know we are better than yesterday and I think Brechin will get the backlash for this defeat. Hope so anyway.

Liviforever wrote:Just watched the highlights, wasn't easy but I wanted to have a better look at their goals, and it was confirmed, Mullin and Toddy were the weak links for the 2nd and 3rd goals, Mullin gets beaten on the wing for both of them and Toddy was the player in the box both shots went past for the goals. Not having digs at them as they've both been fantastic for us but Dunfermline must've noticed a weakness there and exploited it yesterday.

I mentioned a couple of games back that Mullin was getting exposed defending, he is a willing runner but isn't as quick as I originally thought & doesn't seem to have a change of pace. So when he's tracking back, if the opponent has a change of pace or a trick up his sleeve then Mullin is not the player to stop him.

It is an inherent flaw in the 3 at the back system, you need a wing back rather than a winger.

And Toddy, though having done well at the back, is not as good as having an experienced defender & a decent forward will expose his weaknesses. Agree with Afro's comments regarding their defensive qualities & on McMillan, I've liked the look of him when he has come on.

Some of our "fans" are idiots & we'd be better off without them. The annoying thing is they are often the same folk who are very vocal in support when we are doing well but the minute something doesn't go well they turn on the team.