St Mirren v Livi

Maybe I should've waited another day or two before starting this thread, so I don't get carried away with my expectations.

Anyway here goes, trying my best to keep my feet on the ground (no doubt Bertie will balance out any head in the clouds euphoria of winning a game getting the better of me comments), i feel we can get the 3 points here for back to back wins (nope isn't happening i can't help myself).

St Mirren were pretty good defensively and useless at scoring goals, so a difficult team to play against at home, the kind os frustrating team we struggle against. However, I've noticed in recent games they've been a lot more adventurous in attack, still pretty shite at getting goals but trying hard none the less, and it has made them a lot easier to score against, conceding 7 goals in 3 games before their win against Accies. I really think with us looking more like our early season form, Dykes, Lawless, Robbo/Souda attacking, we'll get some goals, and St Mirren still look like they've only got one goal in them, if that.

Saying all that, i'd still be happy with a draw*, just to keep a 4 points gap over them, as long as we beat County at home in the following game.

*I reserve the right to change my mind if we're a goal up and concede in injury time to only get a point.

I’ve not been watching them too closely but didn’t expect them to be as close to us as they are.
I expected Goodwin to sort out the defence, which 3 teams combined to score 7? To be fair that’s marginally over 2 goals a game & if it was top 6 sides then it’s not exactly a sieve at the back.

Yes we got 3 against Killie but we tend not to be too prolific ourselves, so I reckon a 1-1 draw is the most likely result...

Before that they had one of the tightest defences in the league though, where they only lost 2 goals in 5 games and also only conceded 2 against Celtic at Parkheid.Their main problem was lack of goals at the other end, looks like they're trying to fix that and are now conceding more. Oh and Hearts stuck 5 past them too, which def isn't great defending, Hearts aren't exactly prolific goal scorers.

Yeah us taking 9 games to get a win gave the teams below us the chance to close the gap on us, that win against Killie was massive, it keeps us 4 ahead of them. Which is why a draw wouldn't be disastrous, another win would open up quite a gap on them again though, and cut the bottom teams adrift from us.

Just shows what a couple of wins can do, Hibs were below us too and then they strung some wins together and shot up the table, we could easily get back above them if we got a wee run going ourselves. They're still pretty pish in defence. Would love it if we got above them on the 29th Dec when we play them at home.

Not being takin in with this defensive crisis pish from them.This will be a tough game especially on their own patch,but we really should go for the throat here and put as much pressure on them as we can.Both will feel this is winnable after good results last week,im just not so sure we can replicate our display from last week.Will be interesting to see who Gary goes with,for me i wouldnt change a thing.why should we?.Like one or two others i wouldnt be to dissapoited with a point away from home but in this case we are better than them and if we turn up those 3 valueable points will wing their way back to West Lothian where they belong.Anyway,good luck to the lads tommorow and lets do it!!!

Feck me we did it again, 2 goals up in the 2nd half away from home and end up with a draw. Fecking ridiculous if we need to score 4 goals to get a bloody away win.

So dissapointed.Beforehand would have said a point away from home at a difficuilt venue would have sufficed,but 3 1 up and then that.It is points dropped lets not kid ourselves.They had the luxury of having two strikers up front,we havent.Fair dos to Souda leading the line.Maybe should have parked the bus after our third but St midden went for it and got their reward.So frustrating as we always shoot ourselves in the foot.Ross county getting that result against Killie makes next week at home massive for us against them.Iknow its the time of the the year for good will to all,but FFS Livi.Enjoy your night.Lol T.

First of all, well done to both teams for an entertaining game despite the horrible conditions.

I thought we deserved our initial lead, great finish from Souda & then survived a bit of pressure from them but then they equalised when we were regaining the upper hand. I thought Lamie was set to clear it but he got bullied by the wee forward who then finished well.

We then regained the lead thru Guthrie & probably deserved to be in front at HT.

3rd goal was something I believe we would see more of if we played with someone partnering Dykes on a regular basis with Souda again finishing well. Saints were then forced to chase the game & our failure to deal with a routine corner allowed a cross to bounce off a Saint & in to make it 3-2 which really got Saints tails up & I knew we’d need a fourth if we wanted to win... we couldn’t work an opening. Then once again we fail to clear and 2 deflections take the ball past Sarkic, who really had not very much to do but also no chance with the goals. So 3-3 & I began to fear that we were going to lose, which IMO would have been a travesty.

To our substitutions... not sure if Taylor-Sinclair got injured first half but I thought with Lithgow on we lost our defensive shape & balance in the 2nd half. We looked like we didn’t know whether we were playing as a back 3 or flat back 4. Sibbald was doing fine, pretty sure it was his delivery for Guthrie’s goal, so I would have kept him on, Pittman on the other hand was trying hard but nothing was working for him going forward, so I’d have taken him off, Jacobs could have played his role or switched with Sibbald, the latter then playing further forward. Souda also was not the one to bring off for Robbo, he was constantly causing their back line problems. I’d have taken Lawless off, not because he wasn’t playing well but again because he wasn’t getting the break of the ball. Either Robbo or Erskine would have been suitable replacements.

Robbo going down in the box looked like a very poor attempt at a dive but couldn’t understand why he would do so.

A good point away from home but given the way the game went disappointing that it wasn’t all 3

From what I read on P&B from St Mirren fans Souda was causing them problems and they were surprised he went off, Livi fans too saying the substitutions cost us the points. If Taylor-Sinsclair went off injured you'd have thought McMillan was the obv replacement to keep our shape at the back, if it was a tactical change then it obv was a bad one.

Being pragmatic about it, a draw was a decent result, not losing was as important as winning, we're making it harder for ourselves than it should be not getting away wins when we're 2 goals up (St Johnstone, Hibs & St Mirren, even Hearts with the 1 goal lead), but we're still in a good position in the league and as long as we beat County at home we'll be on track for a great month going into the winter break.

Frustrating because we aren't a millions miles from being good enough for a top 6 spot, but these away results, not being able to see out games is the difference between being 3rd place and 8th place, and we need to get better at game management and we'd be challenging Hibs and Killie.

Yeah, as I said, Souda was a threat whenever we went forward, took both goals very well.
Taylor-Sinclair was doing fine too so was surprised he got replaced at HT & can only assume it was an injury. At first it looked like Lamie went to LB but Lawson started pushing up a bit so Lithgow was then pulled right of centre & it looked more like a back 3 but the just didn’t look sure of what they were doing & couldn’t clear their lines effectively.

You’re other points are spot on.

I think the likeliest reason for putting Lithgow on was his long throws. In conditions like that any one of them could have led to a goal. It was a gamble that didn't pay off.
It's always frustrating to lose a two goal lead but to be fair St Mirren deserved to get something. They always looked dangerous going forward.
An away point is a decent haul and I'm sure most of us would have settled for that pre game.
Oh, and the ref was decent today.

You may be right Orco but our long throw policy hasn’t paid dividends for ages now.

I agree that they looked dangerous going forward, I liked their movement & the wee guy up front was causing Lamie bother on the deck. On the whole I thought we were slightly better but can’t really grumble at the outcome.

Walsh was reasonable but still inconsistent in his decisions.

orco wrote:I think the likeliest reason for putting Lithgow on was his long throws. In conditions like that any one of them could have led to a goal. It was a gamble that didn't pay off.
It's always frustrating to lose a two goal lead but to be fair St Mirren deserved to get something. They always looked dangerous going forward.
An away point is a decent haul and I'm sure most of us would have settled for that pre game.
Oh, and the ref was decent today.

I refer you to my OP Orco.

Liviforever wrote:
Saying all that, i'd still be happy with a draw*, just to keep a 4 points gap over them, as long as we beat County at home in the following game.

*I reserve the right to change my mind if we're a goal up and concede in injury time to only get a point.

The Hearts game felt the same but was more palatable when we beat Killie 3-0, if that win hadn't happened the mood around Livi fans would've been pretty low. If we beat County on Sat then this result will feel like a decent one. 8 points from 2 home and 2 away games is very decent. County are playing leapfrog with us all season, hopefully it's our turn to go ahead of them again.

Thinking about results with a cool head, we've had St Johnstone, Hibs and St Mirren away game where we've been up 2 goals in the 2nd half, Hearts away we were 1-0 up till the 88th min, refereeing bodge ups aside, we're having these sort of results away from home far too often to keep thinking we should be better than we are, if we had the quality/steely resolve to see out those sort of situations we would be up in 3rd place, but we obv haven't, so we are where we are, and pre season we'd all have been delighted to be in this league position.

We've done really well against the teams around us.

County- A win=3 pts

Accies-H draw-A loss=1 point

St Mirren-H win-A draw=4 pts

Hearts-H draw-A draw=2 pts

St Johnstone- A draw=1 point

So we've only lost 1 game to the teams around us, and that was down to a refereeing decisions giving Accies a penalty which was shown on Sportscene as a wrong decision. I think that's a lot better than last season, if we continue to get draws away and wins & draws at home against these teams we'll be fine.

Just watched the highlights on YouTube, looked like a cracking game, Souda's goals were really good. Our defending though, bloody hell!

Watched the highlights on Sportscene now too, just to add, Guthrie gets better contact on his free header and it's 4-1 and game over, and Robinson doesn't go down in the box and just keeps running another yard and he'd have been fouled and got a penalty, contact happened when he was already on his way down.
Also really jammy double deflection for the equaliser, we have absolutely no luck with those type of deflections this season, they always seem to end up in the back of our net.

Positives in attack, 3 going on 5 and Dykes had a good header saved too, plus the 3 goals we got last weekend against Killie, wasn't that long ago we were struggling for goals.
Need to be better in defence though and get back to basics with no nonsense defending, just clearing the lines.

Yeah, too often we were trying to play it out when safety first was the only real option.

Dykes makes a hash of clearing the corner that leads to their 2nd goal which is also a fortunate bounce but credit to the big fella that got into position for it to bounce off him. If that had been us on the attack the ball would have bounced off our guy & sailed over the bar.

A wee bit of luck, rub o' the green, ref decisions wrong but in our favour wouldnae go amiss in the rest of the season. Happens for other teams.

Aye that pre emptive penalty dive by Robbo could've gone our way, we've had far worse given against us (Aberdeen @ home, Accies & Hibs away games), or stonewallers not even given (Hearts @ home), if he'd stayed on his feet another step it would've been a foul in the box anyway, just once can we get a bloody break from officials.

We all know that the intent to foul was there. It made me annoyed to listen to the guys on Sportscene say great decision by Walsh as if it was difficult to detect. Even on the Tele I thought he'd made contact. How Walsh was able to decide Robinson had dived in that split second is indicative of the tendency every time to give decisions against Livi. I know I'm paranoid but that doesnae mean they're no oot tae get us.