Livi v Hibs

3-0 home win against Killie, 4-0 home win against County, I like the way this is heading, 5-0 Livi win on Sunday would do nicely. Sunshine on the Spaghettihad.

Your optimism knows no bounds...

They will be on a high after winning the Edinburgh derby, ok they know Hearts are pitiful this season but it’s still a win against their fiercest rivals. We have come back to earth with a bump after 5 unbeaten & we haven’t recaptured the bouncebackability we had on our journey to the top tier, nowadays 1 defeat tends to bring more.

Would love nothing more than to beat this shower but I fear we will do well to take a point.

If you were a Hibee you'd be saying they'd lose against Livi after beating Hearts, coming back down to earth with a bump..

Apparently weve been linked with both Trevor Carson and Glen Middleton,and so it begins.To the Hibs game.Was impressed by them against an albeit poor Hearts the other day .they break quick and have players who can punish any lapse in our defence.With the loss of Wee Robbo and Lithgow for this one we really need to be at the top of our game to get a result here i fear.They will no doubt be motivated by the large travelling support coming through and as long as we can keep them quiet i,l know we are doing well.Would tend to agree with Bertie,a point would see us end the year on a plus note,just hope the players can raise their game one last time this year and send us into the next with a smile on our faces.Good luck tommorrow Livi and to all a guid new year.LOLt.

Hibs are still shite in defence and will give us plenty of chances to score, if we continue our fine home form this is def a game we should be looking to win. Yes they're a good attacking team but so are we, and defensively we've been really good at home, with 3 clean sheets in a row.

Great motivation again for us here, a win will put us back above Hibs, and depending on how Killie do in their away game against St Mirren, we could even move up into 5th place. What more motivation could we need to get a win here.

Comfortable win in the end after a fairly dull first half that we probably edged but didn’t do enough to trouble Marciano. Second half we were better than them by the length of Leith Walk.

Useless officials again, we had the ball over the line 2 or 3 times before the gave us the opening goal.
2nd goal had us on easy street but given our propensity for throwing away 2 goal leads I was surprised by the number of away “fans” that drifted away, especially after their late fight back at their place.

Sarkic had another easy afternoon but almost carried the ball out of his box near the end of the first half.

Lawson was poor in the first half but excellent in the 2nd half.
Lamie & Guthrie dealt with their defensive duties with relative ease. The latter taking both goals well.
McMillan was dependable all afternoon

Sibbald looked a yard off the pace but was delivering decent set pieces
Bartley was quiet by his standards, one driving run in the 2nd half that ended with him being booked for dissent.
Jacobs was more like himself, snapping into tackles & harassing. Dead ball delivery could have been better though.
Pittman gave the vistitors defence no peace but definitely has lost confidence with his finishing

Lawless worked tirelessly & linked well with Dykes
Dykes worked tirelessly & linked well with Lawless

Crawford injected energy that Sibbald lacked
Erskine provided reasonable cover for Dykes
Souda didn’t get long enough but did well with his one piece of being in possession

All in all, great way to end the year, a good run of results in December which meant the somewhat surprising results today aren’t too bad in the grand scheme of things.

Bertie Bassett wrote:
Useless officials again, we had the ball over the line 2 or 3 times before the gave us the opening goal.
2nd goal had us on easy street but given our propensity for throwing away 2 goal leads I was surprised by the number of away “fans” that drifted away, especially after their late fight back at their place.

All in all, great way to end the year, a good run of results in December which meant the somewhat surprising results today aren’t too bad in the grand scheme of things.

Not at home we haven't, 4 clean sheets on the bounce at home and 9 goals scored, we're finishing the year with momentum, and although we're a few points down from this position last season, we're looking far better going into the 2nd half of the season. 5th place and on 25 points, reckon we'll do better than last season's total and get a top 6 spot.

Yeah I know those were away from home but regardless we have thrown away so many 2 goal leads that it would suggest we are frail towards the end of games & they were one of the teams to have recovered from a 2 goal deficit, so regardless of venue you’d think they wouldn’t give up the ghost. Their team kept plugging away but their fans gave up, real fans get behind the team when they are struggling.

Momentum means nothing now though as we have the break to contend with; we have to hope we come back after the break ready to go again unlike last season when we were woeful after the break.

Can't disregard the venue Bertie, our home and away form is like night and day to one another. I can only remember Hibs getting in at our goal once the whole game, and they blasted it over the bar. We had both Doidge and Boyle well marshalled today, the former should've had at least one booking too, think frustration was getting the better of him so he committed a few fouls on our players.

On Sportscene it showed Hanlon dragging the ball back over the line for our first goal, then Guthrie putting it in, then Lawless drilling it into the net. So it was an OG but Guthrie has been officially given it so it stands.

Yeah momentum into the winter break may not necessarily mean we'll carry it on when we resume play, but it does feel like we will, we ended with a defeat to Aberdeen last season and there was a feeling we were on a decline, feels like things are on the up this season and we'll have a better 2nd half than last season's.

Point I’m making is the venue shouldn’t matter, if you get 2 up early, press on & keep doing what you did to get 2 up. If it’s late on, manage the game, keep the ball as far from your goal as you can.

Against St J we didn’t continue to play in the second half the way we had in the first.
Against St M we tried to be clever defensively when safety first had gotten us 3-1 up; against Hibs we didn’t manage the game out properly & were victims of cheating (Scott Allan) & inept refereeing.
Was there a 4th one? Can’t find it in our results list but thought there was.

Anyway, if we get 2 up it’s a good indication we are the better side, so press home the advantage regardless of venue.

But no need to argue, great result, never in any danger & we have a great chance of being top 6 come the split

Prob Hearts away when we were only one goal up but same scenario, fecked it up late on (88th min) and ended up drawing. Could argue we should've had another 2 points in the home game against Hearts too when Robinson was fouled by their keeper hauling him down but the ref didn't give us the pen.

Yeah it shouldn't matter but it obv does because we've only won 2 away games in a season and a half. If we can get that sorted we'll be cruising a top 6 finish, and even challenging for a European place.

Strange season really, we're doing fantastic being in 5th spot, but it has been frustrating as feck seeing us chuck wins away to end up with draws, and as good a season as we're having, it really should be a lot better.

What a way to finish the old year.After a rather dull first half we sprang into life with our offensive play resulting in a scrappy first goal but a beuty of a second for Guthrie.Once again Lawson was my man of the match,just seems to be getting better.Said months ago that points in the bag early doors would be crucial for us and yes weve dropped so many over the course but tbh i didnt expect us to be 5th at the end of the year.Hibs were poor yesterday which kind of surprised me but thats not to take anything away from that second half performance from the Lions.The lads head of to Spain soon for warm weather training soon.hopefully theyl knuckle down and come back raring to go in what is gonna be a rollercoaster ride till the end of the season.Its one im sure we are all looking forward to with confidence after a great first half of the season.Long way to go but well done to Gary and the boys for getting us in the position we find ourselves.Heres to a happy new year to all at Livi.Lol.T.

Hadn't realised it till I read Hibs fans mentioning our home record for conceding goals, but we've only conceded 5 goals in the league at home, and one of those was a dodgy pen for Aberdeen's 2nd goal that was outside the box and a kick on Keaghan's foot by Cosgrove.

Interesting stat comparing it to our away record, we've conceded an astounding 24 away goals. That is some gulf from our home form, quite staggering the difference.

Home Games Played-10    Goals For-13    Goals Against-5

Away Games Played-11    Goals For-17    Goals Against-24


Our Home goals really picked up in our last 3 games too, until then we'd only scored 4 goals in 7 games, but we've scored 9 goals in our last 3 home games to boost it by quite a bit. There has to be a difference on how we play at home compared to away from home looking at the huge difference in those stats, and a way to adjust our away tactics to replicate our home ones.

Joint best home defence in the Premiership with Sevco too.

All the more incredible when you think about all the changes we've made in defence this season.

Stewart started in goals, then Sarkic took over after a few games

Lithgow CB

Guthrie CB

Lamie has been LB and CB

McMillan has been RB and LB

Devlin RB

Lawson RB

Taylor-Sinclair LB

Jacobs RB? (can't remember now if he went in as a RB or LB now)

Anyone else had a shot in defence that I've missed?
 
So only Jon Guthrie has been playing in the same position the whole season.

Just remembered Pepe and Odoffin playing in some games too, and Sevane, although don't think he played in any league games.