LFC Squad - 2020-21

Not a fan of Dykes taking throws either... need him in the mixer.

Apparently Lawless rejected a deal before Christmas and Forrest was immediately targeted as his replacement. Shame as having both would have been better than having just the one.

Agree with you on his future LF, he flourished with us but I think he lacks the pace to go where his skills alone can’t take him; but good luck to him.

Liviforever wrote:Brown could throw the ball 5 or 6 yards further than Lithgow, and Dykes was well behind both of them, can't remember how far Devlin managed to throw it.

Plenty of our players are good at taking pens, Dykes aint one of them though, just imagine how many goals he'd have had last season if he could score from the spot, that would also have bumped up his price tag.
As good as Lawless was, i'm not sure he'd do as well in another team, that's the best season he's ever had in his career, playing within Livi's style of play, and players, him and Dykes formed a great partnership, he said himself in an interview that Dykes helped give him the room to play further forward. Good luck to him anyway, he deserves a big move to give him further financial security.

Agreed - Brown's throw was phenomenal; as good as a free kick or corner in my opinion.

Keaghan was always a good penalty taker but very rarely gets a start nowadays; seem to recall Robinson wasn't bad either.

I also tend to agree about Lawless. There's no doubt he's a good player and much improved last season over the season before but was still not guaranteed a start. There's a lot of competition for the place he starts in with the likes of Tiffoney; Robinson; Menga; Souda; Jacobs; Sibbald and Crawford all played there before. Add to that the arrival of Forrest and its conceivable that his appearances could be limited.

We've won all the Betfred cup games that went to penalties for the bonus point the last few seasons, Gallagher and Dykes are the only two Livi players that spring to mind that missed penalties. Yeah Keaghan is excellent at taking them, but as you said D, he isn't guaranteed to be on the pitch.

Doing a quick check; Jacobs, Miller, Lamie, Souda- all scored their pens against Falkirk in the Betfred shoot out, but only Souda and Keags will still be here for the new season, and neither is a def starter who will play a full 90 mins.

Season prev to that we had; Halket, Lamie, Sibbald, Robinson, Hamilton, Crane, Gallagher, McMillan- Robbo & Dec missed in the pen shoot out against Accies, Sibbs, McMillan and Hamilton scored though, so they're still here.

Basically give it to anyone except Dykes and Robbo.

I see Dykes price tag has risen to a more realistic level, 2M quid, with Celtic now interested.

Prob just to stop Sevco getting him, as he's the only player to rip Jullien and Ajer to pieces, doubt they'd want him going to their only actual rival. Better still if we get 2M for him then loaned back to us for the season. Win win for us and Celtic if that happened, he wouldn't be able to play against them but we'd have him for every other game, if he has to go then that would be the best scenario for Livi.

Funnily enough, after we beat them my boss (a Celt) said they should buy him & bench him. I said better still buy him & loan him back. He saw the sense of it.

Seem to recall Lamie also gave Julien a torrid time in that first game at Livi. Ho hum.

Dykes would be a huge loss but financially I cant see us being able to turn £2 million down if it came to that.

Just dreading the moment that L4E notices that Andy Ryan's been released by Dunfermline....

Never been impressed by Ryan but we do have a record of getting the best out of players like him in recent times

Bertie Bassett wrote:Never been impressed by Ryan but we do have a record of getting the best out of players like him in recent times

To be honest he seems to have one good season when he was playing alongside Ian Russell; other than that he's been pretty mediocre.

As for getting the best out of players; we've had some real successes; but also a lot of failures particularly from the lower leagues. At the end of the day I suppose it comes down to what you can afford; you get a bucket full of Denholms; Sheerins; Orr and Carrick's on the off-chance that you get a Dykes.

Financially though if Dykes does end up carrying a £2 mill price-tag its a hugely worthwhile exercise

Bertie Bassett wrote:Funnily enough, after we beat them my boss (a Celt) said they should buy him & bench him. I said better still buy him & loan him back. He saw the sense of it.

Typical erse cheek mentality, lets buy a good player and then waste him, just to weaken opposition teams, or stopping Sevco getting him.

Durnford wrote:Seem to recall Lamie also gave Julien a torrid time in that first game at Livi. Ho hum.

Dykes would be a huge loss but financially I cant see us being able to turn £2 million down if it came to that.

Just dreading the moment that L4E notices that Andy Ryan's been released by Dunfermline....  

Gave Sevco players a hard time too, punched a player in the chest when he was on the ground, can't remember now which erse cheek we were playing, and burst Aribo's head open.

Would rather we went for Nisbet as a replacement for Dykes (if he leaves), with 2M we could well afford to buy him from Dunfermline, and still have plenty left over. But if Ryan's not got a team, then he may well be worth a punt too, player on the way down with something to prove, we've done well with those type of players over the last few seasons.

Liviforever wrote:Gave Sevco players a hard time too, punched a player in the chest when he was on the ground, can't remember now which erse cheek we were playing, and burst Aribo's head open.

Elbow? What Elbow?

Liviforever wrote:Would rather we went for Nisbet as a replacement for Dykes (if he leaves), with 2M we could well afford to buy him from Dunfermline, and still have plenty left over. But if Ryan's not got a team, then he may well be worth a punt too, player on the way down with something to prove, we've done well with those type of players over the last few seasons.

I imagine they'll already have a few in mind. Certainly there should be plenty of players looking around for a club at the moment although the lockdown probably limits our chances of looking at them.

Kevin Nisbet would be a good option but there seem to be an awful lot of clubs looking at him at the moment; most with better finances than us; we'd also probably have to pay quite a bit on wages which would potentially cause some difficulties with the rest of the team.

Kevin O'Hara's an interesting one - several years at Falkirk and didn't exactly set the heather alight. Moved to Alloa and has really started to settle in (at only 21). Not the finished article but maybe a diamond in the rough. Should be dead cheap and he's certainly experienced in playing on plastic

Wonder if Holt would be interested in Danny Mullen, his contract at St Mirren is up this month, and Goodwin isn't extending it. Could play on the wing, or in a mid 3 like Robbo. Always good for a penalty claim, and the odd 25 yarder in the top corner.

Nah. Was disappointed when he left but he hasn’t improved in Paisley & is still a diving wee git. Not sure he has the right work ethic for us.

Too many managerial changes tbf, not always easy to get into the team when the manager that signed you leaves, just look at the situation Lithgow found himself in with Kenny Miller. Mullen still scores the odd goal and looked a bloody nuisance in games I saw him against us. Can't argue with him being a diver, seemed to get a lot more decisions from the ref than he did when he was playing for us too.

I still think he'd do a job for us, seems some of our fans don't like him now though, but at the time him leaving was best for both him and Livi, we were able to bring in Miller & Hardie.

I have to agree with Bertie about Mullen to be honest. In reality he was never a natural replacement for McNulty. His performance thus far in the Premiership has been less than impressive; whenever he came on against us he never seemed to threaten the defence other than diving all over the place and trying to get a penalty.

Personally I would see Souda; Robinson; Menga; Tiffoney; De Vita; Dykes; Hamilton; Sibbald and Hamilton ahead of him in the starting lineup. Also possibly Forrest but I've not seen him play so the jury's out.

I don't blame Mullen for leaving us when he did; he had his chance at a guaranteed season in the premiership and took it. at the time he moved there was no guarantee we'd even finish in the top four. That being said I think its become more and more obvious that championship is probably the highest level he should be playing at.

Actually its strange how rarely it works out for players returning to the side anyway. Even those returning from loans have rarely seemed to work out.

Raffa, Keaghan, Burton O'Brien and Fernandez all spring to mind as successfully returning to Livi, Kelly came back after being on loan at Livi and signed for us, so he could also be included in that list. Technically Gallagher left us and came back for a 2nd stint too.

Jimmy did ok in his 2nd time here too,  although there have been a lot that didn't do as well returning to us, Derek Lillie was fantastic in his first spell, but a shadow of that player when he returned.

Would have to rack my brain for a longer list of players who've had more than one spell at Livi, and I can't really be bothered.

Yeah, Mullen leaving worked out very well for us, I don’t think we’d have gone up if he’d stayed as the dynamic of the team would have been so different.

I see Lamie has signed for Motherwell as expected, I wish him well & hope he scores a couple of ogs when they play us.

Cardiff are reportedly interested in Dykes now, this could be not bad for us, with us having some sort of relationship with them, having had Brown on loan twice, maybe we'd get the fee we wanted and a loan back for at least half the season, taking us up till the Jan window, then having them assess whether we keep him for the rest of the season.

Got their valuation wrong though, unless by being valued at around 1M they mean 2M.

The 24-year-old is valued at around £1m having netted 12 times in all competitions this season, helping Livingston to a fifth-place finish in the Scottish Premiership.

There is talk of the pandemic bringing transfer prices down...

Liviforever wrote:Raffa, Keaghan, Burton O'Brien and Fernandez all spring to mind as successfully returning to Livi, Kelly came back after being on loan at Livi and signed for us, so he could also be included in that list. Technically Gallagher left us and came back for a 2nd stint too.

Jimmy did ok in his 2nd time here too,  although there have been a lot that didn't do as well returning to us, Derek Lillie was fantastic in his first spell, but a shadow of that player when he returned.

Would have to rack my brain for a longer list of players who've had more than one spell at Livi, and I can't really be bothered.

Of the list I'd say only Keaghan and Fernandez really reached the heights they'ed reached before. Furthermore I'm not sure you can count Gallagher as he was on a break at her majesty's pleasure. One player missing from your list is probably Neil Alexander; he certainly shone in his second stint.

We could probably argue about the likes of Roddy MacKenzie and but I dont thing there's much to discuss about Rory Boulding. Ryan Hardie i one I really dont understand; he was a completely different player in his second half season.

Ciaron Brown did pretty well in his second stint.

I wont say a bad word against Derek Lilley; he had a poor second session with us but I could never question the guys effort and dedication. Colin McMenamin tried hard bit seemed to have an attitude after playing in the "big time" with Gretna.

Lee Makel again did okay, if not spectacularly, in his second session with us but was showing his age.

That's why I said technically Gallagher could be included, he wasn't signed for us during his 'break', and made the decision to come back to Livi when he 'break' was over, after training with raif for a spell. Must've been away as long as Keaghan was before his 2nd spell at Livi.

Imagine me forgetting Alexander, he's up there with Fernandez, the influence he had on the team during his 2nd spell, fantastic keeper for us, between him and Broto as our best ever keeper.

Yeah Brown and Kelly did better in their 2nd time at Livi than their 1st, neither looked that great the first time here.

Brown played mainly on the left first time, more as a LB/LWB, second spell he nailed down the second CB spot alongside Jon Guthrie & they were clearly a decent pairing.

Talking of Brown; has anyone else notice that, in Derek White's tour of the quarantine prepared stadium, when he covers the changing room - all the players that have left have had their photograph removed - well all except Brown?

His name & number are gone though

I know I was clutching at straws but I thought his long throw was head and shoulders ahead of anyone else - including Lithgow.

Yeah Lithgow's relied on a target man just inside the 6 yard box for flick ons, but since Dec left we've not had anyone near as good being able to fend of defenders and getting the flick on. Brown's throw ins  however, were like taking a corner kick, he throws it right to the back post, bye passing the flick on. Good thing about that too, is Guthrie was the target man for the flick ons, which would've been like us sticking Halkett in that role, both have been our most prolific goal scorers from set pieces.