Livi v Accies

Getting all very congested down the bottom end of the table, 4 teams on 11 points and us just 2 points above them, then County and Hibs a point or two above us, we are now desperately needing a few positive results to get us back up and away from them.

Accies looked difficult to break down against Sevco there, and had some golden opportunities to level it to 2-2, so they are no push overs, this is a very tough game for us, but one we can win if we get back to playing the way we were before Dykes got injured. Some of the natives are getting restless as well, so can see this being a tense game, i'll go for a nervy 2-1 win for the Livi Lions.

At the very least it's a must not lose game. Losing Devlin and Lithgow recently has been the biggest blow as our defence has always been so steady. Just have to hope that home advantage makes a difference and that it's not another game decided on poor refereeing decisions.

orco wrote:At the very least it's a must not lose game. Losing Devlin and Lithgow recently has been the biggest blow as our defence has always been so steady. Just have to hope that home advantage makes a difference and that it's not another game decided on poor refereeing decisions.

Or if it is, it goes our way for a change.

Noticed McInnes moaning about Officials needing to be better, because Aberdeen didn't get a penalty to win their game, he didn't complain about how bad they were in our last game against them when they got a penalty that should never have been given (or even last season for the corner they got that was a goal kick to us, and they scored from it in injury time to take all 3 points). We've had more than our share of horrendous refereeing decisions costing us points.

Thinking of this starting line up on Saturday.

….                            Sarkic

McMillan         Guthrie       Lamie        Taylor-Sinclair

...                  Bartley            Lawson

..        Lawless          Pittman        Tiffoney
     
….                            Dykes

Swap Tiff for Robbo if fit, but i'd go a bit more attacking up front than we have been and drop Crawford for either Robbo/Tiff or even Souda playing in an attacking mid 3 behind Dykes, or heaven forbid we even go 2 up front in a 4-4-2.

Harsh on Crawford I know but we don't need 3 defensive mids at home to Accies, we can bring Crawford and Keaghan on 2nd half when/if we're a goal or 2 up and we are looking at game managing the 3 points to break up play and ideally shitfest it to a win.

Robbo played and scored in the reserves tonight, so that's good news, might see him on Saturday against Accies then.

Getting a nervous excitement building up to this game, could be a defining moment in our season, we have a chance to get ourselves a 5 points gap between us and a few of the chasing pack, and also move above Ross County, and it would set us up nicely for Hearts away. Normally I would be pretty confident about dispatching Accies at home, but we're in a bit of a bad run results wise just now, and they're just the team to take advantage of that.

An early Livi goal would settle us down a bit, however how many times have we blown 2 goals of a lead at HT this season, so it would have to be 3-0 Livi before i'd relax.

Yeah, we are on a run similar to last season after we tonked Hearts 5-0, this time after beating Celtic.

Win this & we can start climbing again, lose & we will be dragged into the battle at the bottom, draw & its stalemate all round.

We need to get stuck into them & raise our game rather than get dragged down to their level.

I believe we are better than them, hopefully the players play to their capabilities.

Must admit i watched Accies against Sevco last week and was suitably impressed by them.theve a young team who work hard for themselves and kinda reminded me of ourselves in that respect.Having said that,i feel we really need to start getting back to our old selves and start putting points on the board at this time with it being a crucail time of the season for us.Hopefully Dykes will have wee Robbo up front with him to give us a chance to make home advantage count for us.Really couldnt give a toss how we do it as long as we do.The first goal if any will be crucial hereand god i sincerely hope its for us.My heart is saying a narrow win is on the cards for the Lions,although my head is saying its such an important game for both teams and a share of the spoils may have to suffice.Anyway wrap up well as its gonna be absolutly baltic tommorow and as always i wish Gary and the lads the rub of the green.Do it LIVI.

Quite interesting time of goals scored stats on the match online magazine, we scored most of our goals quite early on in games and then again at the start of the 2nd half, but concede most late on in the 2nd half, also are guilty of switching off going into HT.
Has to be a reason for this, first glance you'd say it must be down to fitness and running out of steam, which is very unlike us, but it's happening too often this season.

Yeah, we are back to the bad old days of not managing games properly, which may be due to not having our GHL back line but regardless needs to be addressed.

That said there was nothing wrong with our match management when we beat Celtic

Looks like we can rule Tiffoney out of this one. According to the BBC he has a hamstring problem.

Robbo fit to play and Tiffoney injured, we're going with a one in, one out rule.

Until I see evidence that I am wrong I remain convinced that we should have been 1-0 up thanks to an og & we should have had a pen when Bartley was injured.

After the goal wasn’t given I said we are never going to score today. We were the only team interested in winning the game but our finishing is woeful. Credit to Accies defenders for throwing themselves in the way but we ought to be finishing those chances.

There was also a frustrating moment second half where we should have had a foul but didn’t get it & 3 of our players stood with their arms in the air instead of playing to the whistle allowing Accies to break on us.

And Willie Colum was shown up today as a waste of skin.

Brrrrrrrrrrr, it was bloody freezing cold today, and the 'entertainment' on the pitch did nothing to take my mind of it.

Accies came for a draw and got it, their keeper actually started time wasting in the first half, reminded me of Darren Jamieson against Falkirk, but even he waited till the 2nd half before pissing around and staying on the ground so long, every time he got the chance to get the ball he dropped to the ground, and stayed there. However we really weren't much of a goal threat ourselves, and got what we deserved from the game. We improved a bit when Robbo came on, and got onto balls from Dykes, if we don't play those two up front in games from the start we're going to struggle like we did today.

I'm just glad we didn't lose a breakaway goal at the end though, Accies deserved feckall from the game but it would've been just like them to somehow score to take all 3 points, thankfully they didn't, and had zero chances at goal all game.

Tbh i'm relieved we've finally got a point to move us up from that fecking unlucky 13, we might just get ourselves on a run now. We've also moved up a place on GD above County, and results elsewhere went as expected, with both Saints teams losing, so onwards and upwards we go.

Another 2 injuries is a concern though, Keaghan starting at RWB today with McMillan on the bench was a puzzle, we've absolutely no cover for natural defenders just now, things are getting ridiculous with injuries.

Disagree that we created nothing, we had a host of chances but shots hit defenders or were straight at the smallest & slenderest goalie I’ve seen in a long time. Any time a high ball went in to him it was never our tall guys challenging, it was always Pittman or Lawless.... and had the og been given and/or the pens for the foul on Marv first half or handball in the second been given we would probably be sitting with 3 points instead of 1 & smiles on our faces regardless of the cold.

But not for the first time this season the officials were inept & made decisions that affected the result.

Colum shrugged his shoulders a number of times inc the Marv incident because he hadn’t a clue what happened. He stood around doing absolutely nothing to get the game restarted when Rice hid the ball in the Accies dug out, the 4th official also did nothing, it was the Lino that was trying to get a replacement ball out. Only 2 mins injury time first half, Marv was getting treatment on the pitch for longer than that & the Accies keeper wasted time everytime he had the ball while the outfield players did the same at throw ins & free kicks. And 3 mins in the second half was also not enough given the time wasting. Totally farcical officiating.

The SPFL is an absolute joke of a league that doesn’t have the cajones to throw the book at the clowns with whistles & flags, mainly because the people “in charge” haven’t got a clue either, all they do is pander to the two teams that are already better than the rest.

I said we weren't much of a goal threat and I stand by that statement. But hey, if we'd managed to have nicked a goal and won 1-0 i'd have been delighted, a win always makes everything better. We were the only team actually trying to win that game.

It was a frustrating game to watch, the longer it went on I just knew we wouldn't score, nothing seemed to fall for us even when we did put a decent ball into their box. Think it was Guthrie that headed it against the post and their keeper clawed it off the line, hope we see that on sportscene too, it'll make no dif now right enough.

According to the bbc match report the handball hit his chest, will wait till it's on sportscene to see what they say though, same with Marv being injured. Collum blew for fouls to Accies almost every time we hit a corner or free kick into their box but completely ignored Marv hitting the deck, takes a dull one to injure the big man too, saw him at Parkheid last week holding off 3 Celtic players for a good few seconds and getting his pass away, he's a big strong guy.

Accies got away with fouls all game though, and only got one booking, must've been a day for Collum trying to keep a low profile card wise, seen him like that before when Motherwell were knocking lumps out of us.

The time wasting didn't really wind me up, the way the game went we could've played another half hour and wouldn't have scored. We had ample time to do so during the 90+ mins. Them hiding the ball in the dugout was taking the piss though, sportscene will prob have a laugh about that one.

On Collum, I don't think our players knew wtf was going on with his decisions either, when he stopped the game for an accies player lying pretending to be injured, he restarted it by walking over to the touch line, dropping the ball at an accies player's feet, who then just kicked it back to their keeper, his whole performance was just as bizarre.

Being pragmatic, it was a tough game for us, against a team that obv came to spoil everything and use every trick in the book to spoil the game and get a draw, they did the same in their home game against us but got all 3 points with the clown with the whistle giving them a penalty, so at least we came away with a point this time and move to 3 points ahead of the bottom 3 teams.

Absolutly horrible game to watch at a hypothermic Amondvale.Been a while since i just wanted the ref to blow the final whistle after that non event.Said on friday that i thought this had draw written all over it but fech me ,we just couldnt get into second gear not helped once again with Dykes on his own up front for most of the game.Il keep on saying it till im blue in the face he needs help and quickly.we are a month away from being able to do something in the transfer window which cant come quick enough for me.Accies did set out to frustrate us and in that respect they succseeded albeit eyebleeding to watch as a paying customer.They got what they came for and will be happy to go away with a point against a lacklustre livi team i reckon.Hearts up next at tynecastle.God help us.Dissapointed.

There was a stramash in the box early on where we had several shots on goal blocked and at that point I got the feeling that it was going to be one of those games. And so it turned out. Loads of near things but none would go in. Poor Sarkic must have been frozen for all he had to do. We are disappointed but imagine being an Accies fan and watching that non football every week.
I watched the replay of the game on Alba. If you slow down the one in the first half where the ball hit the post and was scooped away by their goalie I'd say his hand was well over the line even though his feet weren't. Marv was shoved down in the box so could have been a penalty and the Hamilton defender did use his arm in the box.
This kind of hard luck which has been consistent all season makes me fearful of us surviving in the league. It is often the case that the relegated team have nothing going for them.
I've always liked Lammie so I was delighted to see him getting man of the match.
Dykes has been less effective since coming back from his injury. He frustrates me when he loses the ball and stands still instead of fighting back for it. He can also be a liability with his petulance and fly fouls. He needs a talking to.
I thought we did better after Robinson and Erskine came on. I'm still not convinced by Lawson. For me he blaws hot and cold.
Ah well such is fitba'. Tynecastle is a place we never find points easy to come by. I don't expect any change in Wednesday.

Huns just took 5 off Hearts, it puzzles me how they have gone from the only team challenging at the start of last season to the shambles they are now. No doubt they will turn the corner on Wednesday with a wee bit of assistance from the officials.

Halks may not be up to speed yet and Berra is a liability for them, I actually fancy our chances on Wed, they'll leave more room than Accies did at the back anyway, as they'll not sit in to frustrate us. Naismith is a big player for them though, so it wont be easy.

Naismith will go down every time any of ours go near him. I'm preparing myself for a soft penalty against and, given the referee is Greig Aitken, at least one of ours sent off.

Trial by Sportscene showed it came off the Accies player's stomach, so correct decision. Although if things even themselves out, we should've got a penalty for it, as Accies got a penalty when it wasn't to win our last game against them.
No doubt Hearts will get a dodgy penalty on Wed to balance out us not getting one when we should've against them in our last game too, because that's the sort of alter reality we live in as Livi fans, every aunt gets dodgy decisions against us and we get feckall, even when they are warranted.

It's no fair!

Aye we should just take our ball and go hame.