Livi v Aberdeen

Hard one to predict when we don't even know what team we'll be able to field with players dropping like flies, Aberdeen are having their own injury problems too with Ojo, Bryson and the Gallagher collecting injuries against St Johnstone at the weekend, all 3 will prob be out for this game.

Aberdeen are there for the taking though, reckon our new set up will handle their wingers a lot better than we did last season, that's their main threat for getting balls into Cosgrove and McGinn.

As it stands Dykes wont be playing so we either go with Erskine leading the attack or Robinson, thinking about it I think Robbo is better suited doing what he does, and sitting just behind the striker, and although Erskine isn't the most mobile player he's still pretty tricky on the ball and would feed in the likes of Robbo, Lawless and Souda.

On the injury front, not heard a dickie bow about what's wrong with Lithgow, and all I've seen on Pittman was something clicked in his knee when he bent down to pick up his wee boy, which doesn't sound good. However after seeing how we coped without them against Sevco i'm encouraged enough to think we can get a win here. Oh and we might see a CB pairing of Guthrie and Pepe which should be interesting. Notice Lamie had to go off late in the game against Sevco.

Can see everyone is all excited ahead of this game.

Looking at our injury list of main choice players, Lithgow, Lamie, Pittman, and Dykes suspended, i'd like us to go with this line up;

…...………..........…...Stewart


Devlin...……...Guthrie...…...McMillan*...……..Sevane*  


............Bartley...................Crawford/Jacobs


......Robinson..........Souda..............Lawless


.........................Erskine


*hoping Lithgow makes it then he can go back into CB position with Guthrie and McMillan can move over to LB.

Noticed you went off the idea of Pepe & went for McMillan & Savane
Don’t think Savane did all that well against St Mirren but may be slightly less of a bomb scare.

Can’t see us winning this one but would love it if we beat them.

Read after I posted my team selection that Holt was saying Lamie might make this game, if so then he'd partner Guthrie and McMillan would play LB. Still not heard anything about Lithgow, and why he wasn't playing last week. Also said Pittman was doing some running, so that's good news, doubt he's ready for this game though.

As most have already alluded to the fact that both teams have so many injuries and suspensions makes this such a tough one to call.Were we at full strength i would fancy us at home to actually win this game,but we are not and hence would bite your hand off for a share of the spoils tommorow.Of course its all conjecture and it wouldnt surprise me if the Lions surprised us all again with a super display although still feel our lack off options up front may be our downfall.As usual i wish Gary and the lads the best of luck for the game and sincerely hope they prove me wrong.Oh and before i forget RIP Fernando Riksen.Saw him play many times.Legend.

I suspect the lack of anyone posting is down to the sheer injustice of what happened at the ‘Vale today.
Never have I ever been at a game where we were so dominant that a boxing ref would have stopped it & awarded us the game until today. We slaughtered them at everything all over the pitch except for putting the ball in the net & both of their goals were ridiculous.

The first one was self inflicted as the corner from which they scored came from a rank awful clearance & the corner itself was just badly defended.

The second one was one of the most ridiculous decisions I have seen, there was no foul, no one in red on the pitch or off it claimed anything but the wee nyaff in the green shirt masquerading as a football referee thought a clean winning of the ball was a penalty. Never have I been so disgusted at the ineptitude of a match official & we just seem to plumb new depths of incompetence with the men appointed to officiate our top flight games.

The ref was as much use as a chocolate kettle. Actually, that does a disservice to the chocolate kettle as at least you could eat that. The number of clear pushing offences that went unpunished was nothing short of scandalous. I am not a violent person but I wanted to wring the wee nyaff’s neck at the end.

Aside from that our set pieces when we did get free kicks were poor & our finishing was disappointing, poor and/or unlucky.

Well that was a pisser, most dominant I've seen us against Aberdeen in a long time, yet we leave losing 2-0, WTF!!!

Impressed with how we cut them open several times through the middle but lumping feck, we just couldn't put the ball in the net. The Erskine miss right on HT prob summed up that half for us, could've been 3-1 up had we been a bit more clinical.

2nd half didn't go any better, still had chances but again couldn't score a goal. The pen at the end didn't change anything, more disappointing having another goal in the GA for our GD though.

Thought Bartley was immense, looked like a broken finger for him going off, and Lawson was also really good when he came on as his replacement. As Troy has said, the lack of another striker caught up with us today, we missed Dykes big time and have no real replacement for him being out suspended/injured, so hopefully he doesn't miss any more games for us.

As disappointing as the result is, it showed we are more than a match for any team outside the Glasgow arse cheeks.

Sorry guys. Dont normal post on a Saturday night due to copiuos amount of alcohol consumed but on this occasion felt i had to.Christ where do i start.Refferie Nick Walsh give me a break.So many times so lacking in desisions that so efffected that game.Aberdeen average at best.Think we are gonna have to get used to this having so many of our influantial game changers sitting in the stand with us for one reason or another god so frustrating.Broken record time again,failure to bring a recognised striker when we obviously had the dhance has let us down again.Goys up front did their best but Aberdeen on thewhole dealt with any threat posed.Angry and dissapointed.Big chance lost IMO.Gutted and off to bed.Rant over.Night Night.

No post so far from Orco - must be out hunting down Walsh!

She's maybe banged up in a cell after accosting him in the carpark.

Like the rest of you I couldn't motivate myself to put words to paper (keyboard) last night. If as the wise ones of football say "it all evens itself out over the season" then we're going to Parkhead, get battered useless and come away with a 2-0 win due to a sclaffed goal and a penalty
The most I can take out of the game is that we're not out of our depth in this league as I feared we might be after our loss of influential players in the summer. Apart from that it was frustration on stilts for 90 minutes. The ref was the usual shite but he didn't influence the result. Sadly we did that all by ourselves this time.  

The last 2 games alone we've had a goal chopped off which would've def stood if Walsh had been ref and it had been an Aberdeen player taking the ball like Devlin did against Halliday, a goal awarded against us that was offside (sevco's first goal), and a penalty against us which wasn't a foul, and the tackle happened outside the box. Can't wait for all of those to even themselves out.

The amount of pushing Aberdeen did, and clear cynical fouls to stop us breaking on them, and yet it was us that got the first yellow card, then another for protesting about the penalty, Walsh was just taking the piss with his refereeing decisions yesterday. I couldn't really remember anything about him before, but i'll not forget how pish he is now.

As bad as the refereeing was though, we still should've won that game, in fact we should've had the points wrapped up in the first half going in 2 or 3 goals up. And although we really missed Dykes up front, we still created enough chances to win two games of football, and we have enough goal scorers in our team that we should've got at least a couple of goals yesterday, just our luck they all chose the same game to have an off day in front of goals.

Hopefully they're saving them up for Wed night.

Just thinking maybe if we still had Jack Hamilton with us he could have stood in for Dykes yesterday. Miller seems to be finished. He's injured most of the time.

Agreed on the Jack Hamilton point. I said at the time it was the wrong move to send him out on loan.

Robbo always puts in a shift but even though he chips in with a few goals over a season, he’s not prolific in front of goal.

Also agree that we have a side that is more than capable of staying up but we have to be more clinical.

On the issue of the ref, did his decisions affect the result? I think it can be argued that they did, the accumulation of decisions not given (all the free kicks we should have had but didn’t get - possible pen claim in the first half when Bartley played in Erskine who missed the ball, not seen it again but I got the impression at the time that he was fouled & Bartley was clipped when he retrieved the loose ball); those non decisions could have made all the difference so perhaps he did affect the result.

Hamilton hasn't exactly lit the heather alight in any of his loan moves to Alloa or QotS, so not sure he's the answer, bit disappointed in him in that respect, if he wants to get back to Livi and have a shot at a first team slot he needs to start scoring goals at his loan club.

Actually think Pittman was also a big miss yesterday, he's exactly the player that gets on the end of balls like the one Bartley played just before HT, or the ones Robinson had.

In any case, I think we'll comfortably stay up again, if we were more clinical, like the points dropped against Motherwell, St Johnstone and Aberdeen, we'd be up in the top 6 challenging for a European spot, because that's all that's missing between us and the likes of Aberdeen or Motherwell.

Hamilton has rarely been allowed more than ten or fifteen minutes a game at either of his loan clubs. Not really enough to settle in.

Thought we could have used Souda on the pitch yesterday although, Erskine's miss aside, none of our players disgraced themselves although Stewart's kicking really is pretty dreadful - can we stop passing the ball back to him; we might as well kick it straight out.

I also think the high ball into the area wasn't a strategy we should have continued with. As Erskine was more often than not on the wing; we would have Robinson and Lawless in or around the penalty area; Aberdeen's tall defenders just mopped up everything. When we played it on the ground and used speed we created chance after chance.

Anyway I've only just about regained the power of speech - think the wife though I'd developed tourettes.

One thing though; Walsh proved me wrong as I had thought that Collum was the most useless; ineffectual referee in Scottish football - evidently he has competition.

That was the case at Alloa but he's getting decent amount of sub appearances at QotS, doubt we'd be giving him more than that either.

The thing is when we send them out on loan to a lower division we really want them to be starting games & getting loads of time on the pitch. If he’s going to be used as a sub he’d be as well being our sub.

Yeah but if he was impressing the manager then he'd be getting more game time, kinda a catch 22 for him maybe. Hardie was left out our starting XI when his form dropped off, you have to earn your place. Got to think that he should be doing well in the Championship, if not then how would he be good enough for us stepping up a level?

Playing with better players would help him. Look at Pittman, playing in juniors but has shown he is a Top tier player by playing alongside good players.

Hammy has performed well for us when called upon, not prolific at this level by any means but he knows how to hassle defenders and his scoring record with the u21 side was very good. So a consistent run in the side might just be the making of him.

Yeah but Pittman was still a standout in the juniors, he's stepped up to every division we've gone to but was outstanding at every level.
Hammy seems to have peaked at Junior and SPFL League 2 level, 2 seasons ago when he scored for fun at his loan clubs. Last season for Alloa he didn't stand out enough to get picked as a starter, or even get decent game time, this season for QotS he's getting 20 odd minutes appearances but not scoring goals, think he can play in our reserves as well. He's obv still a young player and has time to develop into a good striker, but he isn't showing any stand out performances.

At Alloa he was meant to be in the starting eleven until they got a Celtic player on loan. This season he's rarely been getting more than 20 minutes a game; that's hardly enough to mould yourself into a team.

Exactly D; if he was getting sub appearances for us at least he’d be forced to up his game; that said, Tiffoney isn’t getting a lot of game time here, he makes his presence felt but he’s still to score so who knows?

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought Hamilton showed promise when we saw him last season. He's obviously far from the finished article but I just think he'd learn as much here as being loaned out if his playing time is limited. We've not got many options up front and he'd give us something when Dykes isn't playing. I think of Lawrence Shankland who was loaned out continuously by Aberdeen then let go. He's flourishing now for a different club.

We've also got Rafa out on loan. He's another that has goals in him as well as an intelligent football brain.
Yesterday we had Souda sitting twiddling his thumbs while his teammates struggled to find the net. Aberdeen were struggling to contain us all game and he might have exploited their defence with some of his trickery.
Can we just wipe out that game and start again.

orco wrote:Maybe I'm wrong but I thought Hamilton showed promise when we saw him last season. He's obviously far from the finished article but I just think he'd learn as much here as being loaned out if his playing time is limited. We've not got many options up front and he'd give us something when Dykes isn't playing. I think of Lawrence Shankland who was loaned out continuously by Aberdeen then let go. He's flourishing now for a different club.

We've also got Rafa out on loan. He's another that has goals in him as well as an intelligent football brain.
Yesterday we had Souda sitting twiddling his thumbs while his teammates struggled to find the net. Aberdeen were struggling to contain us all game and he might have exploited their defence with some of his trickery.
Can we just wipe out that game and start again.

Good idea Orco, Wed night is a free hit again, we're the underdogs and have no expectation on us. Big game next Sat against Accies though, I feel we need to get a win there to keep our good start and feelgood factor going, and it'll be a good confidence builder after tough games against Sevco, and a hard to take defeat against Aberdeen.