Livi v Hibs

The Lothian derby, we've one less team taking part this season, but we've been top of the table the last 2 seasons, lets make that 3 seasons in a row.

Back on home plastic, where teams don't like it up em, and use it as an excuse when they lose, so lets give them another chance to blame our pitch for being mauled by the Lions.

Hopefully Brown is back playing, could do with his long throw to have a decent a goal threat from throw ins. Boyle is the danger man for Hibs, he's already off and running banging in the goals, so we need to be a lot better defensively than we were last Saturday, and not get caught out with balls over the top. Do that and I think we'll come away happy with 3 points. Would be fab if Marv or/and Efe get a goal too, sure they'll be well up for this against their ex team.

The only thing I fear is a repeat of Saturday’s performance; play like that & we’ll get whipped.

Yeh,tend to agree Bertie.Hopefully the guys have got Saturday out of their system. Was frustrating to watch.This one man up front really does my head in. Its early days i know was hoping we'd get off to a flier and get some points on the board early.Hope im wrong,but I just get the feeling we are not going to have as good a season as we had last season. We could concievably have no points from our first 3 games which would be dissapointing to say in the least.Anyway Hibs will be no pushovers,but at least We're back home.Imperative that we bury any chances that we get and get points on the board.On a side note hopefully the live stream doesnt experiance any problems, thats something we could well do without. So good luck to Gary and the lads,we might need some.

Well that was an embarrassing 5 minutes of advertising for “Verizon” and a message saying “back shortly”; and could I find the contact details for reporting problems? No I couldn’t

Is there a phone number to register a complaint about the shambles of a performance?

I’m now wishing the technical issues had continued

Game was pretty even for 20 minutes; since then we have been a complete shambles.

I was worried about this game; I was however prepared to right it off as I think Hibs will be top 3 this season. But the manner of our performance since going behind leaves me with major concerns for the season- we will be nowhere near the top 6 & in a major relegation fight if we continue this level of ineptitude.

Club & players deserve great credit for getting us up & keeping us up but they also need to accept criticism when they are under performing & today we are relegation candidates

We are looking better going forward this half; some good play but still not creating much in the way of clear chances.

Will post later Bertie,once I get my head round this.

That was an embarassment - piss poor on the park and a piss poor streaming service.

Much improved in the second half but still nowhere near the level we need to be at to be competitive in this division.

Streaming quality was good when it worked but three “outages” of varying lengths was poor.

Not sure where to start.Hear goes.Whatched the whole game without sound as did many others. Probably just as well.Ive paid for this and expected better.Teething problems,maybe.To the game itself
Shocking defending in that first half. 2nd half, slightly better.Both stonewall pens imo.Our home form wont save us this season.Others know how to play against us at home.Yes we are bottom of the League, been so long since weve been there.A lot of dissapointed Livi out there tonight.Understandable.Early doors, but worrying. Get this streaming sorted Livi,FFS.

Thought there might be sound problems at the start but when the game began it was ok.
But there were 3 separate outages on the visuals - which was unimpressive.

Embarassing on and off the pitch, poor debut for LFC tv, and our defending is a shambles this season. The team selection and formation isn't working, worrying if the management team persist with fielding 4 CB's, playing 2 out of position then we'll be in serious trouble this season.

Get back to playing a back 4, Guthrie & Brown as CB's, McMillan RB, and ATS at LB, we were solid last season with those 4 in defence, why the feck are we messing with something that worked!!!!

What really worries me if Ambrose being too big a player to drop, and Fitzpatrick being a new signing to play as a CB also wont be dropped, so we'll persist with a back 3, maybe a serious humping from Sevco next Sunday would be a good thing to show the management team we need to change back to a back 4.

Motherwell are having as bad a start to the season as us, if we can win on Wed we'll be right back in the mix, but the problems in defence wont have gone away if we stick to our current formation, so unless we change it, even getting 3 points against Motherwell wont fill me with any confidence.

We've got decent players, but something isn't clicking and defensively we're soft as shit. Not what we've been about at all the last 4 seasons, so really hope we get things sorted. I see this as being as serious as I did when Miller was manager, change it and we'll be fine, if not then I fear the worst.

Bertie,it was awfull. And ive paid my money to experiance this.Regardless of the result.Expected better from my club.Yes early days hearing the Hibs fans had no problems on their stream. Worrying.

It's not just the formation though. What's happened to our pressing game and why were we second to every ball?
Surprisingly I think the lack of atmosphere might be affecting us. There doesn't seem to be any urgency.
I don't want to name players - yet. They still deserve a chance to redeem themselves.
We needed somebody like Alan Lithgow yesterday.
Anyway how can our players play on that plastic pitch? It's obvious that a score of 4-1 must mean the away team had an advantage

Troy wrote:Bertie,it was awfull. And ive paid my money to experiance this.Regardless of the result.Expected better from my club.Yes early days  hearing the Hibs fans had no problems on their stream. Worrying.

Got a cousin who's a Hibee , lives in France - he had no issues with the streaming - think he's gloating over the result - though he did comment on just how poor Livi were compared to last season.

Yeh,i get it was our first home game and suspected we might have some problems,but it was bordering on the Ridicoulos. Bad enough having to watch a Tottaly unacseptable performance from us.And its clear a massive improvement has to be on the cards or else we could find ourselves deep in trouble, even this early in the season.

Holt made all the right noises in terms of guys needing to knuckle down & perform THIS season instead of resting on the laurels of last season.... but as manager he also should shoulder the responsibility for not drilling that in before a ball was kicked... and for not reinforcing it even more after the shambles of the first game.

Still don't think there's a massive difference between the teams, which makes the scoreline even worse, it just came down to blatant bad defensive duties. Which isn't like any Livi team we've seen since we won the League One title. We've built our success this past 4 seasons on hard work and solid defending, Holt keeps banging on about the hard work not being there, but it's the defending that's letting us down. Teams aren't having to work very hard to get goals against us.

Last week St Mirren were good defensively but weak up front, and they still managed to score an easy goal against us.

Hibs cut us open down Devlin's wing, and we were leaving huge gaps in marking our box for both Nisbet's goals from open play, first one we were all in a line too far forward as the ball went across the 6 yard box for a tap in, 2nd one was even worse because it was a high ball crossed into our box that should've been eaten up by our CB's, but Nisbet gets a free header. For one, the cross shouldn't be coming, it should be getting blocked, but the defending in the box is shambolic, like a bunch of strangers never playing together.

Other than Lamie leaving, who was a utility player mostly used at LB, we've the same guys in our squad, with the only addition to defence being Fitzpatrick, so there's no reason at all those players can't get back to being as solid as last season. The problem seems to be in our formation and team selection, Brown and Ambrose aren't the best players for the positions they're being deployed, and i'd have Brown instead of Fitzwater playing in a back four beside Guthrie.

Even Guthrie is looking out of sorts, imo that's because he's playing beside Fitzwater, who hasn't built up an understanding with him yet. That may come with games but why persevere when you've already got Brown available to partner Guthrie, both having built up an understanding playing together last season, and mad a very good pairing. Brown got motm regularly, and Guthrie swept the board with PoTY trophies.

The 3 at the back hardly got used last season so why are we going back to it, we changed to a back 4 and it worked well, we had the best defensive record outside the OF last season, i'm both frustrated and bemused as to why we're changing something that was so very good, and sticking with it when it isn't working.

Seriously as concerned and disheartened as I was when Kenny Miller was in charge, can only see us struggling this season if we carry on as we are, it is affecting our midfield and attack too. Lawless is a big loss but we've still quality going forward, but you wouldn't think it looking at our last two games, isn't until the 2nd half we're even looking like scoring a goal, but by then the defending in the first half has made it too late.

A win against Motherwell would take a lot or pressure off, but I fear it would just be papering over the cracks if we maintain the same formation and team selection, and Motherwell are having as bad a start as us, with their own problems.

There is still plenty time for us to turn it around and get back to being as good as last season, we have to start from the back and make ourselves hard to score against though, or it'll be us and Hamilton scrapping it out for the play off spot to try and avoid automatic relegation.

I know fans are apt to being very reactionary and fickle, but i'm usually a very positive poster, and get over defeats pretty quickly, to get back up for the next game, but all my pre season optimism has been drained from me watching these last two performances. To reiterate, we need to change our backline and get ATS and McMillan as FB's, with Guthrie and Brown as CB's. I also feel we're missing that bite in midfield that Keaghan or Crawford would provide.

Sorry for the war and peace length post, just really scunnered and it poured out as I typed that.

Just fecking hope Holt makes some changes for the Well game and sorts our defence out.

Normally I’d have Devlin in before McMillan but I agree that we are being exposed down his side...but is that because he is playing further forward to facilitate Fitz as right side of back 3?

We seem to be shoehorning in all available CBs; although why ATS started as left side of the back 3 with Ambrose as LWB at St Midden is beyond me. I usually like a back 3 but last season we successfully switched to the flat 4; we didn’t start particularly well last season either with 2 draws in the first two games but the second game set the precedent for the season with us throwing away leads, and we didn’t get any real consistency until December, we’d had some good results before then (Beating Celtic) but some stinkers as well (losing to Killie & Accies) but we weren’t playing too badly.  

Back to this season, I did suggest we would take a thumping if we played as badly as last week in the prematch chat for yesterday & although it was pretty even for 20 minutes, as soon as Nisbet scored we looked a beaten side. The lack of fight & the lack of “bodies on the line” mentality has been evident from the opening game, Holt seems to have noticed this as I mentioned earlier but he also has to reinforce that mentality & if he failed to spot it in Paisley then he’s not doing his job right either.

We seem to be sending out a team to accommodate the inclusion of certain "big" players. That hasn't happened in recent times as there were no "stars" , just a team of grafters who worked for each other

Tend to agree with everything posted already but would point out that, in addition to Fitzwater; Devlin wasn't part of our most impressive form of last season.

Up until the time he got injured last season; he was an impressive tackler but often spent more time arguing and shouting at the CBs (mainly Pepe) rather than putting the effort in to get back and defend. McMillan may not be our fastest player but I've never doubted the young man's effort and never noticed him try to blame others.

That being said we cant blame him for the goals particularly; sooner or later a cross is going to be put into the box and its then up to the central defence and GOALKEEPER on how they deal with it. I dont think McRorie actually covered himself with glory on Saturday; some of his reactions were definitely slow and his positioning often left a huge gap at the back post.

That being said though, when the cross was put in for the first goal, it seemed to trundle past three of our defenders and the goalkeeper before finally arriving at Nisbet's feet. Everyone seemed to expect someone else to be doing something with it.

Having also just re-watched the highlights; I notice Ambrose was in almost the same position for each of the goals; standing with both feet on the ground; not near enough to anyone.

Last season I though ATS was by far our best left back/left wing back. I think we've all agreed he shouldn't have been dropped in order to shoe-horn another big name into the team. ATS does make mistakes but he ALWAYS seems to learn from them - once the first Hibs goal had been allowed to happen (pretty sure he wouldn't have got the space with ATS on the field); he'd have been a lot closer to them for the rest of the game.

A few of the other differences from last year though (excluding the fact that some of the guys didn't seem to realise they were all in the same team); last year (as in previous years) the team's fitness was top notch; we started the game at 100 miles per hour and continued throughout the whole 90 minutes; what the guys lacked in skill they more than made up for in stamina. Now I appreciate that the lockdown impacted our preparation but really there's no excuse for that; the boys should have been maintaining a fitness regime at home and carried it through to pre match training. Surely this is something that could have been done even with social distancing?

Another one is what happened to our midfield; in previous years we've managed to totally boss the whole game. Often Pittman has been the hub of this but he's looked off his game of late. We've had periods like that before but have usually been able to bring on Jacobs for the much vaulted "no-nonsense approach". Yesterday, Bartley aside, we were decidedly powder-puff in midfield; at least until Forest and Poplatnik came on. Sibbald tried but he seemed to want too much time on the ball time and again.

Finally, I've said it before but I'll say it again, previously been been spoilt by being able to settle in with the Betfred Cup - this year is different but we really should have anticipated that.

I believe we'll come good; I think there's no doubt we'd become a little complacent about our home form and there were some that were excusing last week as a bad day at the office. There can be no real excuse for Saturday, Hibs are an okay side but no-way world beaters. Players need to know what their role is and give 100% - no excuses. In addition the management need to be prepared to put together the best team based on form and best position rather than "Who" they are or previous performance.

Onwards and upwards Lions!

Yep Nisbet is being hailed as the second coming, wanting him called up for Scotland, shows how fans can easily get carried away. However we've dealt with players like Morelos and Edouard, so in comparison Nisbet is a nowhere near their standards, we were just so soft, and disjointed. No danger we'd have conceded 4 goals at home last season to this Hibs team, doubt very much we'd even have lost to them. So things need shaking up and quickly, we can't continue as were are and expect anything other than a constant struggle.

We were all worried about losing Dykes, but at the minute, his talent isn't being utilised by us anyway, he's so isolated we could just stick Efe up the pitch as our lone striker and have the same impact. Now there's an idea, at least it would leave the space to get someone in their proper position at the back and maybe improve us there.

Whilst I'm in moan mode another thing that got to me was Brown's long throw in.

Even though they were of excellent length; the Hibs goalkeeper was able to come and collect the ball time and again. in some cases that was because the ball arrived too close to him; but on other times he was able to cover 6 plus yards to collect the ball without and interruption - oh if only Ambrose had been standing in the way as stoically as he stood still for their three goals; we could have won about 5-4.

Okay, maybe I'm being a little unfair but, rather than having two guys standing on the line holding on to each other, someone like Guthrie standing in his way would have left us a far greater chance. Poplatnik started to make a nuisance of himself in the penalty area when he came on but the game was already running away from us.