Livi v ICT

Looks like ICT have sorted out their poor defence so expecting another tough game here, our home form has taken a turn for the better though so hopefully we'll make it 4 wins on the bounce at home.

Half expecting Hoppy to start Mackin for this game and leave Danny on the bench same as he did with Dec in the Pars game when he'd come back from suspension, hope i'm wrong though. I'd like Keaghan to start as well, something like this would be good:

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

                     Gallagher              Halkett               Lithgow
 
McMillan               Byrne            Pittman          Jacobs              Penrice
 
                                  Todorov                  Mullen

Again, I'd probably start Mullin over McMillan but I can see sense in have the more defensive McMillan on from the start and bring on Mullin later. I think Mullin's form has jaded in recent weeks mainly due to the defensive duties he has been asked to cover.

I thought Rafa did well yesterday but still prefer him coming on against tiring defences.

I thought Toddy tried hard yesterday but wasn't getting much change out of Crighton - Brechin's best player IMO - and I think Crighton also acted as a peacemaker in the handbags that happened just before half time, so kudos to him.

McMillan is pretty decent going forward too, as is Penrice, that's why i'd go with those two, and both are better defensively too.

Agree Mullin, Rafa and even Longridge would be good options from the bench against tiring players.

Mackin did well and I have a feeling Hoppy may start him but I still have my reservations about his work rate chasing down balls, good when we're going forward but he needs to add that to his game or he's a bit of a passenger.

Inverness have come on to some form during the past month or so, this will be up there with the likes of Dunfermline and St Mirren in terms of difficulty. After the horror show against the Pars away I'd be inclined to have McMillan on the right and Penrice on the left to give us some cover defensively, with Mullin, De Vita and Longridge coming off the bench. That said, I wouldn't be disappointed with a point, but if the attitude and application of the players is the same as it was against United especially, we're in with a great chance.

1-1, FG 34 mins.

Right then... ICT have improved, we possibly peaked against United but managed to bounce back after the loss in Fife with a win that was slightly easier than the 3-2 scoreline suggested.

A win against ICT would be a huge result in terms of the gap we would open up between us and them so they might just be more psyched up for it.

Liv 2 ICT 2
FG 17 mins

They've gone 5 games without conceding a goal (incl a cup game) and we've not played a game all season without scoring, something has gotta give.

Def think we'll score and the form they're on suggests they will too, so a score draw is prob the most likely outcome and considering the form they're on, having just beaten both Utd and Dunfermline, it would be a good result for us.
Can't help myself though, i'm going for a narrow Livi win, but I think we need to start McMillan to make sure we're as strong as we can be at the back, apparently ICT have a really lightening quick winger and I just don't fancy Mullin playing as a wingback against him, would be Dunfermline all over again. And I've a feeling Mackin may start after having a big influence on us getting our win against Brechin which would strengthen the case for having McMillan in defence too, we'd be more likely to have ICT bringing the ball out of defence and getting down our wing.

Anyhoo, 3-1 to the AM fg 8 mins.

And hopefully Utd beat St Mirren and we'll go top of the league. Added boost to our chances would be Robbo getting Oct MoTM for his team's 3 wins and a draw without conceding a goal, let the hoodoo have time to get hold and bring us our win.

*Edit forgot to put time of first goal, and feck it changing my score to a bigger win for Livi too, we're gonna cuff them.

Mullen and Mackin both playing in the Development game tonight, both have scored a goal each too. Could be a trial run for the ICT game.


Cadden playing too, hopefully he gets through it without any problems and is fit for the game on Sat too.

Mullen scored again to make it 3-0, good run out for him to get him sharp for the ICT game.

No further scoring, finished 3-0. I'd take that again on Sat.

Another tough one to call but arent they all.No doubt wee Robbo will have them fired up for this and as their starting to pick up points will fancy their chances here.Good to see wee Danny back and hopefully Hoppy will go with 2 up front to try and put pressure on their back line.Will be a different game than last week in that we know theve got better players than last weeks opponents ans are starting to hit a bit of form.Once again i reckon home advantage could just about swing it our way and if its us that score first i hope the guys dont sit back and just get tore in about them.We are good enough to do it and just hope the players believe it to.Send them back up north Livi with nothing.!!!

You've got reward to Mackin with a start up front with Mullen after the week he's had. Todorov is a selfless player and will only want to make more of an impression if he's dropped to the bench. Inverness in the first half of the last game was the best I've seen from any team in the league this season so that plus a solid defence will make it difficult no matter who is in our midfield.

Feeling confident for once: Livingston 1. Inverness 0. FG 77 mins.

Just checked the weather and its almost perfect for this one.

Don't see that we have to give Machin a start up front but that will probably be the case. Like it or not he does seem to manage to get in with the goals no matter what.

Cant help feeling sorry for Dale Carrick but he hasn't really made the best of the lean chances he's had.

Do think Jacobs; Byrne; Pttman are our best midfield particularly for this game where the main battle is likely to be in the midfield. Also understand that ICT have at least one strong winger so would go for McMillan ahead of Josh and Penrice ahead of Longridge.

This is going to be a stern test but I think we have the metal to win through.

I'm going for a 3 - 1 win to Livi with the first goal after 9 minutes.

Durnford wrote:Just checked the weather and its almost perfect for this one.

Don't see that we have to give Machin a start up front but that will probably be the case. Like it or not he does seem to manage to get in with the goals no matter what.

Cant help feeling sorry for Dale Carrick but he hasn't really made the best of the lean chances he's had.

Do think Jacobs; Byrne; Pttman are our best midfield particularly for this game where the main battle is likely to be in the midfield. Also understand that ICT have at least one strong winger so would go for McMillan ahead of Josh and Penrice ahead of Longridge.

This is going to be a stern test but I think we have the metal to win through.

I'm going for a 3 - 1 win to Livi with the first goal after 9 minutes.

Hopefully Dec doesn't get blinded by the sun again, and lose sight of the ball as it bounces over his head.

1-1, FG 19 mins

Liviforever wrote:

Hopefully Dec doesn't get blinded by the sun again, and lose sight of the ball as it bounces over his head.

Hopefully we kick off from the south end; with clocks having gone back the flood lights should be on for the second half.

Durnford wrote:

Liviforever wrote:

Hopefully Dec doesn't get blinded by the sun again, and lose sight of the ball as it bounces over his head.

Hopefully we kick off from the south end; with clocks having gone back the flood lights should be on for the second half.

Holy sun in the opposition keeper's eyes, good thinking Batman.

I thought we set up to avoid defeat rather than to take the game to them.

I would like to have seen 2 men up top from the start because Donaldson likes time on the ball but is not so comfortable when he is pressured, two of his pass backs were firmly played which in turn pressured Ridgers, he dealt with the second one near the end far better than the first one early on. We didn't threaten him enough over the 90 because Mullen was on his own for much of it.

ICT had the 2 best chances of the match which Alexander saved well, they really should have scored both. So all in all I'm happy enough with the point given the way it went. There was also the offside decision that went against them... I shouted for offside but he may have been behind the ball.

I thought Hoppy took too long to make changes & the double change was the wrong thing to do.
Cadden had the right back panicking but when we brought on the two big men, he went to the far side and the right back started getting forward causing us the odd problem or two. Their sub at left back was also able to match Cadden for pace so he had to keep coming inside and not getting crosses in.

Ref was useless as usual, the booking of Mullen for diving was a bad joke and the ICT player, Mulraney I think, dived more obviously and got away with it while the clearest dive of the lot was Donaldson.

Nothing to add to that Bertie, we got what we set out for. Frustrating to watch us being so negative at home and was just hoping we'd go a bit more attacking with our first substitution about the 65 min mark but it was like for like, and we waited till about 80 mins before going 2 up front.

Annoying with us being 2nd and a chance to go top, imo far too negative, if our aim is 8th and consolidation then we've near enough done enough to secure that, so nothing to lose just going for it today and a chance to go top. Just felt a bit too meh today.

Set out for a point, and a got a point. Predicted, and would've taken, a point before the game, but disappointing to see us line up so negatively at home. In theory having Pittman off the main striker is a good setup, the reality was Danny up front on his own was useless for nigh on 70 minutes... I wonder if the setup today was a reaction to the Dunfermline defeat, who played similar to Inverness in the sense that they sat back and broke quickly with wide players. McMillan's absence understandably played a part in that lineup today, and the double substitution underlines the real lack of quality we have up front in the squad; having Mullen up front with Todorov or Mackin would've caused them some bother, particularly given both ICT centre halves were on yellow cards. Not the end of the world, and if we hadn't had such a great start to the season I think everyone would be in agreement that a point at home to Inverness is a decent result.

Word on the ref - how on fucking earth can you give Mullen a yellow for the 50/50 then not book Mulraney for a far more obvious piece of simulation a minute later? The Donaldson incident was far more laughable, the big donkey is still, somehow, a fairy all these years later. What a wasted talent.

The only good thing about today was that we didn't get beaten.

Thoroughly boring and negative display, left me feeling cheated. We're far better then what was on offer today so Hopkin must take responsibility for that uninspiring effort.

He said in his post match comments that he would have been happy with a draw before the game so that clearly was his intention all along.

OK, we're exceeding our expectations so far but fans turn up to see their team play at their best, that didn't happen today so no pass marks and one big rasperry to Hoppy for squandering the opportunity to sit top of the pile tonight.

I think Alexander def got pass marks, he kept us in the game with several fine saves.

Frustrating to watch but bigger picture could see us being the only top 4 team to get a point against them in the 2nd quarter, feels like a chance thrown away for us to go top of the league though.

On a more positive note, was good to see Cadden coming on and getting through the game unhindered by his old shoulder injury.

Yep would agree with all of the above but as has been said so frustrating to watch that yesterday.Hoppy,s decision to play with one man op front for nearly three quarters of that game absolutly bamboozeled me.You could see Danny,s dissapointment when he was subbed and i felt so sorry for him having to plough a lone furrow up front for the entire time he was on.Yes its another point gained but i definetly feel it was an opportunity lost imo.Special mention for Alexander for twice keeping us in a game that was totally forgetable.Wee break coming up so hopefully Hoppy will disect this and see where we went wrong yesterday.

I don't think Hoppy will be looking at it as going wrong Troy, his tactics were to not lose and he's happy to get the draw. I doubt he'll be looking to see what he could've done differently, we'd have been fortunate to get the win and a draw is quite acceptable to him.

Maybe if we'd lost the game he'd rethink it but we got the result he was looking for.

As Afro said, the Dunfermline result was prob on his mind going into this game and he set us up to nullify the ICT threat down the wing, wouldn't surprise me if we do this again when we play Dunfermline. Aird was a better player than Mulraney though, but he had it too easy against us in the first half.

Personally i'd stick with 2 up front but have Penrice and McMillan as wingbacks to give our back 3 protection down the flanks. Basically how we were set up in the 2nd half against Dunfermline is all we needed to do, but McMillan wasn't in the team yesterday so maybe he's injured. It looked like Keaghan was covering Mullin on our wing and Pittman was meant to be supporting Mullen up front, but Mullen ended up being isolated and we weren't really playing through midfield, we were hitting a lot of long balls up to him. Which is why we needed Toddy or Mackin up along with him.

I don't know who they have played this quarter so far but they are not that good a side on yesterday's evidence. I can't see them going unbeaten against the top four based on what I saw yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZCZM02CyNQ

Looks to me that Danny was barged off the ball. Never a booking.
Also the offside for the Caley goal was very tight.

I think overall that was a better point for us than Caley. They had good chances to win it but the ball wouldn't go in for them. Tbh I was glad to hear the final whistle because they looked better that us by that stage.

Danny up front on his own was hard to watch but I'll trust Hopkins knew what he was doing on the basis that he's got us this far sitting a point behind the leaders.

A fortnight now to regroup and get back to winning ways. Not easy mind you in this league.

Bertie Bassett wrote:I don't know who they have played this quarter so far but they are not that good a side on yesterday's evidence. I can't see them going unbeaten against the top four based on what I saw yesterday.

They've just beaten 2 of the top four teams in their previous 2 games.

Looking at their recent form they've gone 6 games without conceding a goal, incl a 0-0 draws with QoS, Falkirk and us, and beating Dunfermline and Dundee Utd, we didn't press them enough up front but they're on an impressive run just now, Dunfermline and QoS have both very good attacking players and couldn't score against them. Still think we'd beat them with 2 up front and the right players in defence but on current form maybe playing safe was the best option, we'll never know now anyway.