Celtic v Livi

This is it, the league opener for our first game back in the top flight, up against the Champions for their flag unfurling at Celtic Park.

Ok, even I can't see us getting a win here, a draw would be a fantastic result for us but I fear we'll lose by a few goals.
Maybe if Hoppy had still been in charge and we were going into this game with a settled starting eleven knowing our game plan, but our playing style has changed and i'm not convinced by it. Playing it out from the back will invite pressure on ourselves playing Premiership teams, we haven't really been tested yet but we certainly will be on Saturday. So in that regard it will be interesting to see how we stand up against the best team in Scotland.

Yeah, for once I have to agree with you pre-match. Of course it might be in our favour to be playing them early, before they are fully in their stride.

I think we will do well to not lose by more than 3. However, our season depends on how we do against the likes of Hamilton, Dundee, St Johnstone, St Mirren & Motherwell more than it depends on the matches against the probable champs & their challengers.

If there's a man in recent years that knows how to beat Celtic...it's Kenny Miller...saying that I can't see us winning but I'm sure he'll set us up to frustrate them

cptn_hooch wrote:If there's a man in recent years that knows how to beat Celtic...it's Kenny Miller...saying that I can't see us winning but I'm sure he'll set us up to frustrate them

Hope so, he had plenty to say to the Sevco manager after they got a doing from Celtic, so he must know it would be suicide to have an open game against them.

Burchill had Sevco's number in a couple of games before being punted, played to hit them on the counter and defend with the two banks in front of the 18 yard box, that's how we'll need to play on Saturday. Worries me that Miller doesn't want us to hit long balls from defence though and supposedly that's why Lithgow has been benched, because that's exactly what we'll need to do against Celtic.

You can't stick rigidly to playing one style, Hoppy didn't do that last season, you have to play to whatever is best against the opposition you're playing.

We'll soon see on Saturday though, if he makes mistakes then hopefully it'll be a learning curve for him, it's a free hit for us as Celtic are likely going to take 3 points off the teams we need to get above to stay up.

As much as I've been banging on about Lee Miller being played as our lone striker, I think we need to do that against Celtic, he's our best hold up player for long balls knocked up to him, but our midfield need to get up quick to support him once he has the ball. He'll be a good out ball to get us free kicks to take the pressure off us for a spell too though.

We've got good midfielders to frustrate them in a battle, Pittman, Keaghan and Byrne are excellent at breaking up play and harrying opposition players, if we play the right tactics we'd give them a decent game. I'm just not sure whether Miller will do so.

Played plenty of long diagonals on Saturday, nearly got Kaja & Crane in a few times

We've started bringing the ball up to the halfway line before hitting them though, but haven't yet been pressed doing so. Last season we were hitting them back from our 18 yard line, then looking for the midfield to gey up and win 2nd balls, stretching opposition's defenders more, we're not as direct this season.

Not on Saturday we weren’t. There were regular balls from our defensive third hit diagonally to Crane, Kaja & to a lesser extent Cadden.

We are not playing the same way as last season, I grant you, we are not playing to feed off second balls as much but that might change when we start playing the top sides.

So far we've played teams we're better than, and Hamilton who are a similar level, so it'll be interesting to see how we set up against a team much better than us. Celtic are a weird one too, the default setting is obviously to sit back but I think that played a part in their long unbeaten run, Hearts didn't and attacked them and hammered them 4-0. Generally I don't mind the result, as long as it's not something like 6-0 and we play well I'll be pleased.

4-0 I think, although a 1-0 win with a late Kenny Miller goal from an offside position would be glorious.

Celtic and Chelsea beat better teams than themselves in Europe playing a defensive set up, we'll get the ball off them in midfield so we just need to hit them on the break the odd time and stick one away, a Scotty P 35 yarder would be glorious.

I expect it to be 4-0 to the home team... with the FG in 23 mins

A last minute og off the backside of any Celtic player gifting us a 1-0 win would be glorious

Anyone know if it's worth signing up for Celtic TV or something to watch this? Won't be able to get to the game but don't want to miss our return to the top table

cptn_hooch wrote:Anyone know if it's worth signing up for Celtic TV or something to watch this? Won't be able to get to the game but don't want to miss our return to the top table

Could do. Could also go on Reddit 'soccer streams'...

They usually have a rip of Celtic TV.

Great header from Rogic for the opener; only thing is no one really got near to challenge him but he looked massive compared to our big hefty brutes that bullied everyone in the championship last season.
Second goal was bad from the point of view that they scored on the counter from our corner. I thought Brown had done enough to block it but sadly he hadn’t. Pen was at the far end so no idea if it was or not but it looked soft to me.

Main observation for me is simply this... we improved immensely once the manager was subbed. He was largely ineffective & Jack Hamilton did more in his brief spell on the pitch than Miller (K) did all game. The manager needs to take a long hard look at himself in the mirror & honestly assess what he brings to the team. He certainly did not merit a standing ovation from us; that was frankly embarrassing.

Laugh of the day was our fans singing “we can see you sneaking out” to the droves of unwashed hordes leaving with 10 minutes left.

They were clearly the better team but we hung in, weren’t embarrassed & if we keep our heads up will give the bottom half of the division a run for their money.

I was surprised that Brown started & I think his lack of match fitness showed.

Kaja was our top man, Pittman, Byrne, Halkett, Gallagher, Lee Miller, Robinson, Saunders, Kelly, Lawless, McMillan & Hamilton all gave good accounts of themselves. Brown struggled but did have 2 or 3 good moments, the manager (see earlier in the post) should have managed & let his players show what they are capable of. We looked much more like the team from last season after he went off & that, for me speaks volumes.

Wasn't at the game but that thought came into my head too Bertie, we scored and threatened more after Miller subbed himself. It is going to cause problems once Hardie is fit to play too, because Hardie is def better than K Miller and Lee Miller and Hardie showed they play well together, so K Miller really needs to let them start together and keep himself as a sub.

According to the radio pundits the pen was soft but it was a penalty. They said Halkett was being fouled at a corner too though and we should've had a pen, then they broke up the pitch and McMillan took one for the team fouling Griffiths.

Glad we scored anyway, to finish on a wee high. On a positive note, after the opening game against the Premiership champions we are sitting 10th, and out of the relegation zone.

Liviforever wrote:Wasn't at the game but that thought came into my head too Bertie, we scored and threatened more after Miller subbed himself. It is going to cause problems once Hardie is fit to play too, because Hardie is def better than K Miller and Lee Miller and Hardie showed they play well together, so K Miller really needs to let them start together and keep himself as a sub.

According to the radio pundits the pen was soft but it was a penalty. They said Halkett was being fouled at a corner too though and we should've had a pen, then they broke up the pitch and McMillan took one for the team fouling Griffiths.

Glad we scored anyway, to finish on a wee high. On a positive note, after the opening game against the Premiership champions we are sitting 10th, and out of the relegation zone.

Not the best image but it doesn't look like a penalty to me; but then agin it was at Parkhead so what do you expect:

https://streamable.com/f01uh

Was surprised Lithgow didn't start; beginning to think Miller doesn't rate him which is frankly ridiculous.

Beaten by a stronger squad but not disgraced.
I think the team were a wee bit overawed by it all in the early part of the game. The first goal was a good one from a Celtic point of view. Hard for our guys to deal with a guy like Rogic on the end of the header. The second was disappointing since it started off from our corner. Kelly maybe could just have saved it if he was a wee bit sharper. Their third was from imo a soft penalty. The Celtic player was knocked off the ball in a manner that would probably not have been a foul anywhere else on the pitch.
I'm not saying it would have made a great difference to the score but the Celtic defenders got away with pulling and climbing over our guys the whole game.
Our fans came away happy with that last minute goal so a nice plus there.
The whole team worked hard today. I would give special mention to Byrne, Pittman, Gallagher and Kaja. He's fast!
Re Lithgow, I think a lot of Livi fans are surprised he isn't featuring. They sang the Alan Lithgow song during the game when he was running past with the other subs.
Our season proper starts next week. Let's hope we get something from Killie.
Finally, It's a while since I've been there but Celtic Park really is a magnificent stadium.

Durnford wrote:

Liviforever wrote:Wasn't at the game but that thought came into my head too Bertie, we scored and threatened more after Miller subbed himself. It is going to cause problems once Hardie is fit to play too, because Hardie is def better than K Miller and Lee Miller and Hardie showed they play well together, so K Miller really needs to let them start together and keep himself as a sub.

According to the radio pundits the pen was soft but it was a penalty. They said Halkett was being fouled at a corner too though and we should've had a pen, then they broke up the pitch and McMillan took one for the team fouling Griffiths.

Glad we scored anyway, to finish on a wee high. On a positive note, after the opening game against the Premiership champions we are sitting 10th, and out of the relegation zone.

Not the best image but it doesn't look like a penalty to me; but then agin it was at Parkhead so what do you expect:

https://streamable.com/f01uh

Was surprised Lithgow didn't start; beginning to think Miller doesn't rate him which is frankly ridiculous.

Yep we would never have got that had it been the other way around, their player got straight back up and wasn't even looking for it either.

Yeah, I didn’t have a clear view of the pen but it looked like another decision in favour of the champions from the officials that they don’t need to be giving cause it’s hard enough playing the team without assistance from the match officials. A number of throws should have gone our way that didn’t & as Orco says their defenders got away with everything that our defenders were penalised for. The pen incident for us was the grappling style of defending where their defender impeded our player by having his arms round him, pulling his shirt & leaning all over his back.

We had one of the best moves of the match with Gallagher making progress down the right & chipping on defender for Kaja to hare up the wing & cross superbly... I think - if I remember correctly - that ended with Hammy heading just over.

I think we showed we can play in that final 15 mins & my former boss (a Celtic fan) also mentioned that we were much better after KM went off.

Wee Danny Mullen getting 2 goals for St Mirren too, bit of a bummer for his 2nd with the Dundee keeper making a blunder for it, would've been good if they both had a draw. Accies were 1-0 up too and when they said a goal for Miller my heart skipped a beat thinking we had scored, too many players with the same names as ours, Dundee keeper was Jack Hamilton too, I was thinking why is Hamilton making a save. At Least Hearts came back to score 4 past Accies though. I'm looking at those three teams results and not really bothering about anyone else, those are the teams we can get above.

Our late goal today moved us from 12th to 10th & that would be superb in 37 games time.

Was expecting something like 6-0 so quite happy with that result, especially considering we have guys who didn't play like Hardie, Sibbald, Lithgow, Lamie, and Jacobs.

Rogic was a class above everyone and none of our players could get near him. Never a penalty IMO, but not expecting anything else at Parkhead. Kaja could be a great player for us this season, and I'm excited to see how Hamilton can develop if he's not loaned out; going from playing in front of a few folk at Penicuik to 60,000 against the Scottish champions must be some experience for the lad.

Can't wait for Killie next week, we'll have a better idea of where we're at after that game anyway, and even they'll be pushing in the top half this season.

On any other day we would have taken a right hammering yesterday considering the quality we were up against,so credit to the lads for keeping the score respectable.Agree that the jury is still out on Miller as to what his continueing roll is gonna be although his goal line clearance preventing a certain goal was one of the highlights for me.On the penalty incident we all know that that any visiting teams to either Parkhead or Ibrox will get many favourable decisions going their way,yesterday being a prime example.Thought the boy Kaja looked promising and hopefully will get better as the season rolls on and was tough to blame Kelly for their first two goals as the defence around him let him down.Another tough game next week against Killie arent they all but will be good to finnally get back to the Vale after so long.Any way keep your chins up Livi and well done to all the boys

I'd forgotten how much Glasgow big team bias you have to put up with from pundits and media, was listening to open all mics in my car yesterday and barely heard anything about Livi, even when Robinson scored it was all about Celtic being disappointed to concede a late goal.

When I got home and looked at our twitter page it looked a far better story, and showed we actually had a few decent attacks on their goal in the last 15/20 mins.


Even in the press post match you've got headlines such as 'all too easy for Celtic' from the Scotsman, really, what were they expecting given the gulf in finance and dominance Celtic have had in the Premiership the last 8 years, on the back of a double treble too. A bit less smart arse headlines from the Scotsman and show other teams some respect and put in some balanced reporting ya fa**ies.

That's us up to 9th place now, piece of piss this Premiership.

So I suppose technically I did the manager a disservice by saying he was ineffective as he did clear a certain goal off the line... he also got booked for next to nothing... however, I still think he needs to take a step back & give the team the chance to show what they can do because we were much more ourselves after he went off.

Perhaps having him on the pitch is making them more apprehensive.

Long way to go though, Kilmarnock at the Vale next & they will be hard to beat.
From watching Sportscene’s “highlights” slideshow last night, most of the other games had a quicker tempo than our game. So although we have played the best, the rest present challenges of their own.