2019/20 Season's Expectations

A bit early I know, we've not seen any results from pre season friendlies yet, though they don't really tell you much anyway, and there are meant to be a few more signing targets that Holt is interested in. However there isn't much else to talk about pre season on here, so may as well get some chat going on what expectations we have for the forthcoming season.
We can always change our minds in the next few weeks.

If we were looking at things from last season's tactics and formation then i think we'd all agree on things looking a bit bleak, we've lost our keeper and 2 main defenders, one of whom was the best in the league, however i think this will see us having a wee shake up and changing how we play. We ended the season looking stale too, results weren't great, so again, i think having a change will be good for us.

Well that's my take on it anyway, forever the optimist.

Devlin and Bartley are excellent signings, Crawford sounds promising too. Added to guys we've managed to retain, Lawless and Robinson, i think we've got quite an exciting looking attacking team. Devlin and Menga could be something to behold playing on the wings.

As i opened with, far too early to make any kind of reasoned expecation, but i'm pretty optimistic that we can repeat last season's fantastic accomplishment, and stay up quite comfortably again.

Yeah, it is really too early to confidently predict how things will go.

I would like to think you are correct but a lot will depend on how quickly the team gels & how good a start we make.

Like both of you have said its a tad early for predictions.lets not forget a good number of our goals last season came from three players who have now left us.Ifeel that this coming season whoever is going to be up front for us are going to have to start chipping in more goals than weve had previously.More than willing to giving the new boys a chance however the need for an out and out striker is paramount as far as im concerned and im sorry but we aint got one at the moment.Personally im setting myself up for a fall this season although i realise were in our own little leauge with Accies St mirren and ross County.Once again that elusive tenth place would do for most i feel myself included but of course i know these lads will do there damdest to prove me wrong.Not expecting the start we had last season but whatever il be there once more to cheer the lads on.Good luck to Gary Davie and the boys,i think we are gonna need it.Lol T,

Well that's us played the Betfred games and had a wee look at our new signings, and how the team is coming along. Still to play a Premiership team though so will wait tio see how we fair against Motherwell next weekend before making my mind up fully.

Right now my thoughts are that from midfield to attack we're where I thought we'd be, solid in midfield and providing the attacking players chip in with their customary goals we'll be fine. Souda and Dykes look decent enough up front, and Devane and Devlin should give good support up the wings. Bartley looks a good solid holding midfielder that will orchestrate things from defence, and Crawford is another dynamo to break up play in midfield.


Again as expected, our weaker areas are GK and defence, the keepers look competent enough, not as good as what we've had the last two seasons but I think they'll do well enough. Defence has options, thank goodness, on the whole I think we'll do ok, but Pepe is going to be one player that gives me the fear, always looks a mistake waiting to happen, and he'll be severely tested next game against Motherwell. If we come through that one with anything i'll be delighted, and a lot more confident about us doing well (no pun intended).

On a positive note, there are some other teams that have had a disaster of a Betfred group stage, St Johnstone look a mess, and a lot weaker than last season, St Mirren still look relegation candidates, Accies are just Accies, prob going to survive but look like a team we can get above. Hearts also haven't started great, have no doubt they'll be around 5th-7th, but I have no fear about playing them.

Sevco look a lot stronger, but points against them are a bonus anyway, so i'm not going to be too disappointed if we don't get points off them this season (hopefully we can get something in home games again though). And I don't think Ross County will be a soft touch, they look like us from last season, I think they'll take points off most teams and be a tough team to play.


Optimistic we can get above St Mirren, Accies and St Johnstone, but will wait till after the league opener before making a final prediction.

Said pretty much the same thing to my oldest today. Not as sure about our regular goal threat as you but I think we have a very good chance of finishing above the two Saints & Accies.

Haven’t seen Devane but he’s going to have a hard job getting ahead of the goal machine that is Rickie Lamie (he’s one of our own - not through the ranks but as a fan)

That's us had a look at the team against Premiership opposition, i'm sticking with my last post then, I really think we'll finish above the 2 saints and Accies. Our keepers are not as good as last season but they're both good enough, Stewart is a good shot stopper and reasonable at dealing with high balls, his kicking isn't great, whereas Sarkic's kicking is good and his shot stopping looks decent too, not so sure about him dealing with high balls though.

The defence looks pretty solid as a back four, only concern there is cover for injuries, Pepe would come in and he just doesn't fill me with confidence.

Midfield is still fantastic, and we have plenty options there to bring in and change things, without losing any of the hard work and intensity which has been crucial to our success.

Up front is still lacking a prolific scorer, but we had to get by without that last season and still did well, Dykes looks a good out ball and Souda is full of energy and class.

My season prediction would be:

League position: 8th/9th

Scottish Cup: quarter finals

League Cup: semi finals

Tunnock's Caramel Wafer Cup: Our Colts team knocked out in the 2nd round

POTY: Pittman

YPOTY: Scott Tiffoney

Top scorer: hmmm, Souda or Pittman

Player that could be an unexpected surprise: I think Tiffoney could be a surprise package this season.

I’d forgotten about this thread when I made my BBC predictions & StJ’s collapse yesterday is a big boost that they may indeed be poor this season. I guess we’ll find out on Saturday.

My season prediction would be:

League position: 8th/9th

Scottish Cup: knocked out in our first game whatever round that is

League Cup: quarter finals

Tunnock's Caramel Wafer Cup: Our Colts team knocked out in the 2nd round

POTY: Bartley

YPOTY: Scott Tiffoney

Top scorer: Right now I don’t see anyone other than Souda threatening the goal & I think we need to change how we play to change that. I want to see 2 up front with someone like Tiffoney feeding off what Dykes wins in the air. Souda is too much of a wide player to fill that role.

Player that could be an unexpected surprise: I think Tiffoney could be a surprise package this season.
(Is there such a thing as an expected surprise? )

Yeah should just change that to surprise package.

Looking at last season and using it to gauge where we are this season, a lot is riding on us getting points from our last 2 games in our opening eleven fixtures.

We got off to a flyer last season, we had already racked up 18 points at this stage, but we lost the last 2 games of that first eleven block, so we are on 11 points with 6 still to play for, even getting to 15 points would be really good. Because we dropped quite a few in the next eleven.


So it isn't broken up into quarterly sections, as the split only plays 5 more games, but i'll do it in sets of eleven anyway, then five for the last 'quarter', which is games left after the split, just for simplicity, playing every team 3 times then the split.

First Quarter

Last season= 18 points
This season= 13 points

Second Quarter

Last Season=12 points
This Season=15 points

Third Quarter

Last Season=12 points
This Season=

After the Split

Last Season=2 points
This Season=

Season Points Total

Last Season=44 points/9th place
This Season=

Points wise it hasn't been a spectacular as last season, with too many silly points dropped (should have beaten Hamilton; Motherwell and St Johnstone and surely should have got something against Aberdeen), but we managed to beat Celtic. That alone puts the team in my hall-of-fame as far as I'm concerned.

Durnford wrote:Points wise it hasn't been a spectacular as last season, with too many silly points dropped (should have beaten Hamilton; Motherwell and St Johnstone and surely should have got something against Aberdeen), but we managed to beat Celtic. That alone puts the team in my hall-of-fame as far as I'm concerned.

Yep the St Johnstone game was def 2 points thrown away, in fact we threw them away twice in the one game, chucking a 2 goal HT lead, then getting a pen in ET to get all 3 points again, only to miss it.

The Aberdeen home game is also one we somehow lost when we dominated it so much I thought we should've won it, a sloppily defended corner and a wrong decision by the ref for their pen (although the pen made no difference to the result by that time).

The penalty against Accies gave them all 3 points though, and it wasn't a pen, so we were cheated out of a point there, by an incompetent ref.

At worst that's 5 more points we should've had, which would've put us on 16 points with 2 games still to play. We prob could've had points last season from games we lost or drew though, so we are where we are.

Surprisingly we collected 12 points in the next 2 quarters, in my mind our results after the winter break were where we really dipped, but obv not, the 2nd quarter was still being carried by the fantastic 1st quarter start, so I didn't notice it so much. After the split was horrendous too, 2 draws and three defeats, but I suppose being safe pre split affected performances, and other teams were fighting for survival. If Holt's aim is to get one more point that last season though, then we've plenty room for improvement on results in the 2nd & 3rd quarter, and post split games.

Strange really - would have expected Hardie's drop in form after the break to have had more of an impact compare to the second quarter where he, as far as I can recall, had returned and was scoring goals.

To be honest last season most of us were expecting to at least be in the bottom play-offs so the end result was pretty splendid; but likewise several players had already signaled their departure well before the end of the season, and Halkett played very little in the games after the split as far as I can recall, so perhaps the end result was to be expected.

Yeah but Hardie wasn't in the team when we had our best spell, and his goals in his little purple patch in December didn't really make that much of a difference points wise, as far as I can remember the only game he really got us points was the Hibs game at Easter rd where he scored in a 1-1 draw, and maybe St Mirren where he put us ahead before Sibbs made it 3-1. His goals against Aberdeen and Hearts made little difference points wise,  we lost 2-1 anyway against Aberdeen, and the Hearts 5-0 game we won convincingly with or without him scoring, they completely collapsed in that game after Halkett's opener, then their red card for fouling Menga.

Yep; not arguing; just saying.

Another thing I remember from the start of last season was the relatively high number of goals being scored from the long throw or our set piece "header" be that corner or free kick.

I think most teams seems to struggle with that approach at first; second time around many teams were prepared so we needed to mix it up a bit more.

I mentioned something about our long throw ins a few weeks back, noticed when Lithgow was taking them we had nobody as a target man, it was just a throw into the box, which was being easily defended.

We've got at least 3 players who are very good at winning high balls, Lamie, Guthrie, and Miller, one of them needs to do what Gallagher did, and get flick ons from the throw ins.

Liviforever wrote:Looking at last season and using it to gauge where we are this season, a lot is riding on us getting points from our last 2 games in our opening eleven fixtures.

We got off to a flyer last season, we had already racked up 18 points at this stage, but we lost the last 2 games of that first eleven block, so we are on 11 points with 6 still to play for, even getting to 15 points would be really good. Because we dropped quite a few in the next eleven.


So it isn't broken up into quarterly sections, as the split only plays 5 more games, but i'll do it in sets of eleven anyway, then five for the last 'quarter', which is games left after the split, just for simplicity, playing every team 3 times then the split.

First Quarter

Last season= 18 points
This season= 13 points

Second Quarter

Last Season=12 points
This Season=15 points

Third Quarter

Last Season=12 points
This Season= 3 points (after 1 game)

After the Split

Last Season=2 points
This Season=

Season Points Total

Last Season=44 points/9th place
This Season=

Updated this for the halfway mark, things have really picked up for us in the 2nd quarter. We were 5 points behind last seasons 1st quarterly total, but have gained 3 points on the 2nd quarter, to have us only 2 points behind last season's points tally at this stage. However we're on an upward trajectory just now, whereas we hit a wall last season at this stage, so I think we can do much better in the 3rd quarter.

Course you also have to take into account placings differ with other teams not doing too well, and we're sitting 5th in the league, 5 points clear of Killie in 7th place, we're in with a great chance to get a top 6 spot this season. Just need to keep on going as we are and take another 15 points before the split.

The win today puts us 1 point ahead of last season's tally at this stage.

Liviforever wrote:That's us had a look at the team against Premiership opposition, i'm sticking with my last post then, I really think we'll finish above the 2 saints and Accies. Our keepers are not as good as last season but they're both good enough, Stewart is a good shot stopper and reasonable at dealing with high balls, his kicking isn't great, whereas Sarkic's kicking is good and his shot stopping looks decent too, not so sure about him dealing with high balls though.

The defence looks pretty solid as a back four, only concern there is cover for injuries, Pepe would come in and he just doesn't fill me with confidence.

Midfield is still fantastic, and we have plenty options there to bring in and change things, without losing any of the hard work and intensity which has been crucial to our success.

Up front is still lacking a prolific scorer, but we had to get by without that last season and still did well, Dykes looks a good out ball and Souda is full of energy and class.

My season prediction would be:

League position: 8th/9th

Scottish Cup: quarter finals

League Cup: semi finals

Tunnock's Caramel Wafer Cup: Our Colts team knocked out in the 2nd round

POTY: Pittman

YPOTY: Scott Tiffoney

Top scorer: hmmm, Souda or Pittman

Player that could be an unexpected surprise: I think Tiffoney could be a surprise package this season.

Pretty shite with my expectations then.

Don't think any of us seen a 5th place finish right enough, esp with us losing Kelly, Gallagher, Halkett & Byrne. Some season again by Livi.

PoTY is between Marv, Guthrie, Lawless & Dykes imo, 4 huge players for us, Dykes will prob get it.

Could make a case for any of those four...all have had an influence on the season.

I’d go for Guthrie as he had to replace Halks & while I would have kept Halks in a heartbeat (no pun intended) Guthrie has filled the void.

But I think you’re right and Dykes will get it & the YPotY

Bigger question than PoTY, should Gary Maley get a new contract?


Stay or go - you decide!


68%Yes - Offer a contract.

32%No - Get him out.
Vote
156,975 votes
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1 day left

Didn't realize there were quite as many Livi fans around the world.

Liviforever wrote:Bigger question than PoTY, should Gary Maley get a new contract?


Stay or go - you decide!
 

68%Yes - Offer a contract.

32%No - Get him out.
Vote
156,975 votes
•
1 day left

Didn't realize there were quite as many Livi fans around the world.

I haven't voted yet - is there a "don't really know" option?

Should be an 'as long as we can loan him out to QOtS' option.

Have you read the twitter posts? There are a lot of folk on there who need a sense of humour transplant

Aye the holy willies have come out in force, imparting on us their morality wisdom, telling us all how this is just disgusting, deciding a players livelihood on a twitter vote. Even after being told it isn't real, they still can't seem to get their mind's around it, and complain about how lots of players are losing their jobs just now, and it's in bad taste. Yes. because we are not all aware of how grim things are with coronavirus lockdown, and how dare folk have actual fun to take their minds away from everything for a few seconds, shocking behaviour.

At least the players, incl Gary Maley and other team players, are having a few moments of frivolous fun over it. #savegarymaley #thinkofhisfamily #gethislawyerandthepfainvolved

Gary gave a decent account of himself on TalkSport this morning. His first sentence when asked about it was “This has really grown arms & legs” - Laura Woods loved the whole thing & seemed to enjoy talking to the big man. It was hilarious when he revealed he’d pledged £1 per vote to charity (& Davie was going to match it) if the vote was to stay... they had thought they would get about 500 or 600 votes... At the time he was on the radio the number of votes was over 150,000

They agreed then it would be 2 months wages.

And all’s well that ends well... 70% of the vote went in Gary’s favour & the video of him signing his new contract with a pencil is a good laugh as well.