Betfred Cup Draw

Yep, another month till our first home game against Killie, hopefully it'll be delivered and laid by then.

Our game against Accies on Tues night has been switched back to NDP, their pitch is now ready.

Berwick losing 2-0 to Accies should be a breeze against them on Saturday.

Airdrie up 3-0 against Annan, we've broken them on Sat.

So I could now argue that the real group decider was our 1st game victory over Airdrie

You could argue what you like, you usually do. : :

Good win by Airdrie, Annan not so good away from home, should be a good game on Sat between them and Accies for 2nd place. Another drubbing handed out to Berwick, expecting us to do the same and cruise to a 4 or 5 goal win, finishing on 11 points.

Betfred Cup 2019 Draw
https://livingstonfc.co.uk/betfred-cup-draw-2019-20/

Feels strange being the big team in the draw, usually we're about the 2nd or 3rd fave to go through. Would've been pretty confident of winning the group with this season's squad, but with two key defenders away and uncertainty over a couple of other players we really wont know how good we'll be until the Betfred games have started.

And as hot favourites we are set up for a fall

Have to say we should be winning this group comfortably. Ayr will more than likely lose Shankland and without him they have struggled in games. Falkirk going to league 1 they will take time to re-evaluate their squad and while they should win League 1 can't see them being a challenge to us in the group, Stranraer finished 8th in league 1 and Berwick were relegated from the SPFL. Any Premiership team should be winning this group. In saying that. This is football

Absolutely....which just sets us up for an almighty fall.

Or not.

Would love it if we could win the group and get further than we have the last 2 seasons too.

Of course. And believe it or not I expect us to win the group....

An apt title for our cup campaign so far, just call me mystic LF.

Anyhoo, I see a few other Premiership teams didn't manage to get off to winning starts, Hibs drawing 1-1 with Stirling Albion and winning on pens, Hearts drawing 1-1 with Utd on Fri, and also winning on pens, and Accie drawing with QP then losing on pens.


Hopefully that has shaken off some of the cobwebs in front of goal and we've sharpened up a wee bit for Tues night against Ayr.

Didn’t think we played too badly over all & we looked like we were playing in 3rd gear some of the time.
Hopefully that was the case though, because we’ll need another couple of gears in the weeks ahead.

Yeah we controlled the game well enough, and looked the stronger team, just need to sharpen up in front of goals and we'll be fine.

Tues night is looking like the game that will decide things, a win against them puts us in the driving seat, and only a huge slip up by us could stop us topping the group after that.

Berwick at home should be a skoosh, but by then they're prob going to be in mega defensive mode after getting humped a few times, and that will make things very frustrating for us, trying to break them down. And Stranraer away has bad memories, so can't take either of those games lightly.

You are beginning to sound like me

If we had someone like Hardie in the team i'd be full of gay abandon, thinking every game would be a breeze, but we aint, and i'm a bit less free with my optimism this season.

Liviforever wrote:An apt title for our cup campaign so far, just call me mystic LF.

Anyhoo, I see a few other Premiership teams didn't manage to get off to winning starts, Hibs drawing 1-1 with Stirling Albion and winning on pens, Hearts drawing 1-1 with Utd on Fri, and also winning on pens, and Accie drawing with QP then losing on pens.


Hopefully that has shaken off some of the cobwebs in front of goal and we've sharpened up a wee bit for Tues night against Ayr.

Can now add St Mirren to that list, after losing 3-2 to the Pars.

Would love to get through and draw Hibs in the next round, we're overdue due giving them a cup pumping.

Well that was a huge win for us against Ayr, putting us in the driving seat with 2 games left to play, and against the weaker 2 teams. Hoping for a draw between Ayr and Falkirk but from seeing both play against us, Ayr look a lot better team.

Stranraer were pretty physical going by Falkirk fans comments, so expecting a tough scrap against them, our class of players should see us winning it by a couple of goals though, and we're a lot stronger physically than Falkirk.

Liviforever wrote:Well that was a huge win for us against Ayr, putting us in the driving seat with 2 games left to play, and against the weaker 2 teams. Hoping for a draw between Ayr and Falkirk but from seeing both play against us, Ayr look a lot better team.

Stranraer were pretty physical going by Falkirk fans comments, so expecting a tough scrap against them, our class of players should see us winning it by a couple of goals though, and we're a lot stronger physically than Falkirk.

I read that - its pretty worrying as we don't need any injuries at this early stage.

They have Carlo Pignatiello on loan don't they; I wonder if he'll be allowed to play against us?

Stranraer is the potential banana skin; with all respect to Berwick there shouldn't be any question there. Actually there shouldn't be any question with Stranraer but we all know how a trip down there can end (think Pittman is the only survivor from then).

However if we can win our remaining two games that will put us on 11 points. The most Ayr can get is 9 and Falkirk 10 but obviously that really depends on the results between them.

Yeah we really should have no excuse now. In a way the pens win over Falkirk works in our favour because of the win last night

We can sit back on Sat and watch the Ayr v Falkirk result coming in, if it's a draw and Ayr win the pen shoot out they'd both be on 5 pts with one game left to play, giving us the luxury of only needing 4 pts from our two remaining games.

Ah well that went as expected, Ayr beating Falkirk, providing Ayr win their remaining game v Stranraer, we'll need at least 5 pts from Stranraer and Berwick.

Berwick losing 6-0, and have a -13 GD after 2 games, we should be looking to put at least 6 past them, but we know by the time we play them they're going to go into a defensive shell and try to frustrate the life out of us.

Hearts at Tynecastle in the next round then, fecking nap.

Thought Aberdeen were going to be one of the better teams in the league this season but they've been really toothless in front of goal the last few games, dunno if Cosgrove is carrying a knock and not 100% and they're useless without him being on top form. Currently losing 1-0 to Dundee at HT without having a shot on target, and only one shot at goal.

Sevco a goal up against East Fife too, so a cup upset looks unlikely there,


Final 8 looking likely to be:


Celtic
Livingston
Hibs
Hearts
Kilmarnock
Partick th
The Rangers/East Fife
Dundee/Aberdeen

So who do we fancy out of those for a quarter final opponent?

I wouldn't mind Hearts at home, although they've made a couple of late signings and are looking a bit better than they were up to this week, saying that, Motherwell aren't looking too hot either so difficult to tell how good Hearts are. We should've beaten them in our league opener.

Hibs are pish, think we'd take them home or away.

Killie aren't as good as last season either, also think we could beat them home or away.

Sevco and Celtic would prob ease through at home against us so think we'd need to get them at the Spaghettihad to have a chance.


Not bothered about Partick, but would prefer a home tie against Dundee or Aberdeen.


Basically I just want a home game against anyone.