Livi v Sevco

Could really do with a home win here to lift our spirits and get us moving points wise.

Hardie wont be allowed to play but if Menga is fit to start and Raffa replaced him around the 65th minute then I think we'd have a decent attack. Raffa has played in a couple of reserve/bounce games (and scored I believe) so surely must be about ready to play in the first team, we could do with him for this game.

Take it Keaghan was being saved for this game too, so we should be back with our midfield 3, no reason we can't go out and grab all 3 points against them again. Mon the Lions.

I’ve got the fear for this game. Not because they are particularly good, it’s just a feeling in my water that we are in for a dodgy spell of results.

Our home form is keeping us up, if we won a few away games we'd be up there challenging for a European place. Don't think we'll make top 6 unless we start picking up some points away from home either though, Hearts are there for the taking of that 6th team position if we can win the odd away game.

Hopefully Gerrard will play Defoe and Morelos up front again, it didn't work for them and it was at the expense of their midfield. Can't pay 65K a week and not play Defoe though, apart from his goal he added nothing to their team, which is good news for us.

Yeah, but I just can’t shake the feeling, we’ve not won since we beat Hearts 5-0 and have lost 4 in a row (inc the friendly in Portugal) by the odd goal; we’re not playing badly but we’re not playing as well as we were. And we had a similar run of no wins after putting 4 past Dundee... and both teams then shut us out the next time we played them.

And now we have apparently sent Hammy out on loan! Aaarrrggh.... he should be getting game time with us, he’s shown he can cause problems at this level!

Sorry guys but ive got a bad feeling about this game tommorow.I feel our offensive fraieltes will come to the fore tommorow unless Gary has an ace up his sleeve.Our midfeild whoever it may be are going to have to chip in and put a helluva shift in which i suspect they will do.And Liam and his defence will have to be rock solid and frustrate the hell of them.However we are at home and we know they dont like it here so lets just get tore in about them and see where it takes us.Will be watching todays results as they come in but nevertheless we are where we are and cant affect them until tommorrow.I,l be there roaring the Lions on as usual and wish Gary Davie and the lads the best of luck.Ithink we are gonna need it!!

Could do with winning this game now, Hearts beating St Johnstone leaves us with a 7 points gap in 7th place and Motherwell are within touching distance of us now too. We had better get our finger out and start picking up some points or we're going to find ourselves slipping down the table and having no chance of getting that top 6 spot.

We're overdue a break in front of goal, think we must've used up our our goals in the Hearts drubbing but hopefully we can get back on track against the blue Glasgow arse cheek, getting fed up of all these 1 goal defeats. Mon Livi you can do this, lets have some more of Gallagher winding up Morelos too, just for the fun of seeing him getting yet another red card rescinded by the CO.

Hope our boys were watching Millwall v Everton & especially Wimbledon v West Ham; the former showed how to never give up when twice going behind & to keep going right to the end to grab a winner & the latter showed that a team of hard grafters with more skill than they are given credit for can get it right up ‘em and not panic when 3-0 became 3-2 & again kept going to seal it just before the end.

Tremendous stuff & inspirational.

They might have Defoe & we won’t have Hardie but let’s get stuck in & get it right up em!

Another disappointing result; didn’t think it was a 3-0 game but it doesn’t help when your keeper throws one in his own net, the outfield players keep getting caught in possession & the referee has clearly decided that players in white shirts are allowed to do things that players in amber shirts aren’t.

Clear pen at the end denied.

I thought we stood off them too much at times, last time we were in their faces for 90 mins. Menga did not look fully fit. Erskine had some nice touches but is clearly still finding where he fits in. Lawless had some good moments but also got caught in possession too often but was never given anything by Clancy. Pittman was probably our best midfielder but wasn’t at his best. Jacobs looked a wee bit slow. Byrne needs to learn to find a forward pass. Lamie looked like he was hanging back rather than pushing forward. G-H-L tried admirably. Kelly has had better days. Still don’t see anything about Wylde that should have him ahead of Cadden, Sibbald was tidy. Tiffoney impressed me & while he maybe should have shot before being fouled he still should have been awarded a pen.

The worst thing about the result is that Rangers are not particularly good & we showed 2 or 3 times we could get at them. They fouled at Will & got away with most of them. And their subs should not have been allowed to warm up in front of our stand.

And what were the repeated pitch invasions about when they scored? For that matter what were the stewards & police doing to prevent it?

Bertie Bassett wrote:And what were the repeated pitch invasions about when they scored? For that matter what were the stewards & police doing to prevent it?

This actually annoyed me more than the performance today. Rangers fans in the home end (which generally I'm fine with as long as they behave themselves) cheering the goals and giving the gestures to the home support as stewards just watched and didn't bother even asking them just to calm down a bit. Then obviously the pitch invaders; were any of them shown the way out? Don't think so, get back in the stand so you can do it again later you cheeky little scamps. That's before you get to the songs they sing, which I'm sure the authorities will do nothing about despite it being loud and clear.

Only went to away games against the cheeks once so I could tick it off the list; will probably start to give the home games a miss too tbh.



Anyway, trying to bypass the poor aspects of our performance and look to the positives:

• Erskine impressed me, think he could do well alongside Hardie with some nice touches and passes
  
• Tiffoney looked bright when he came on, again some good touches and has pace that could hurt defences
  
• Halkett was excellent, shame about the third goal but it could have been more if not for him
  
• I think Wylde will get better with more games, looked sharper today than he did against Hearts anyway
  
• Erm, it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be?
  

Happy to put this one behind us and look ahead to Fir Park next week, hopefully a nice birthday present in the form of a Hardie hat trick.

Once Kelly let that first goal slip under him it was game over really. We didn't play as well as we have but were still frustrating them and it would've been a different 2nd half had Kelly made that comfortable save, He's got enough Brownie points this season to forgive him for it though, so I wont dwell on it.
Dolly wasn't fit either which gave us nothing in the way of an out ball, he wasn't chasing after long balls like he usually does, was hoping Raffa would be back by now and playing today but there's been no sign of him since he scored in a reserve game a week or so ago. Like the look of Tiffoney though, we're just needing Hardie back into his scoring best to carry us a bit till injuries clear up and then we'll be fine.

As i said on Saturday i had a bad feeling about this game and unfortunately my fears were true.You could see from the off that Sevco were really up for this and virtually bossed us for most of the game.Would agree that Dolly wasnt 100% fit although he tried his best against a resulute Rangers defence.Isquirmed in my seat when i saw that ball go under Liam and hel be so dissapointed to have let that one in,hopefully hel learn from it as hes been brilliant for us so far this season.Ive no qualms about the result as Rangers thoughrally deserved the 3 point on a day to forget for us.We move on and hopefully get back to our old selves agasinst The Steelmen next week.Chins up guys,

Reading that the Sevco Fans damaged the pitch with their flares, and we're having to divert funds we had set out for local charity projects to pay repairs. I thought Sevco were liable for that sort of expense, damage to seats or astro surface caused by their travelling fans?

If they aren’t they should be; if they are they will probably offer to pay us in “empty ginger bottles”.

LiviLion wrote:

• Erskine impressed me, think he could do well alongside Hardie with some nice touches and passes
  
• Tiffoney looked bright when he came on, again some good touches and has pace that could hurt defences
  
• Halkett was excellent, shame about the third goal but it could have been more if not for him
  
• I think Wylde will get better with more games, looked sharper today than he did against Hearts anyway
  
• Erm, it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be?
  

Happy to put this one behind us and look ahead to Fir Park next week, hopefully a nice birthday present in the form of a Hardie hat trick.

Actually I think Erskine was very poor; we would have been far better with Cadden in that position.

Halkett had one of his worst games for us but then again the whole defence tried too much to play a John Hughes tippy tappy game trying the pass the ball between each other when there wasnt the space to do so and kept getting robbed. Previously we've been so successful in relieving pressure by getting the ball swiftly into the opposition half.

Menga was clearly unfit; he obviously prefers playing more on the wing than dead in the centre but he was certainly well off his game - not the mention the two golden chances where he missed the goal altogether.

Lamie seemed a little unsure of what position hew was meant to be playing; attacking he was still good but took far too long in getting back; that said he's just back from injury.

One strange thing was that whenever Lawless got the ball he seemed to be surrounded by three or four rangers players; that being said I though he did okay although his shooting was also pretty abysmal.

Byrne seemed to take a sore one in the first half and seemed to be winded after that.

For me Pittman was MOTM; kept running; hassling and trying to make something happen. That being said if the young lad Tiffoney had been on for 90 minutes I might have changed my mind over MOTM. Having watched the highlights he definitely should have had a penalty at the end.

The guy that fouled Tiffoney had been fouling like that all game & getting away with it... the other defenders were draping themselves over Menga like bad blankets & likewise getting away with it. So short of assault with a deadly weapon anything a white shirt did was perfectly acceptable.