Livingston v the rangers

I know but everyone is already writing us off that we won’t get nothing out of this game, so I say we go for it. We are at home and for the first 3 games of the season our defence has been shocking, so I say best form of defence is attack, so we go for it. Might just surprise them.
Dykes and Poplatnik could be a very good fit. Poplatnik looked good when he came on against Hibs and I am convinced that if Gary played him in the second half against Motherwell he would’ve converted at least 1 of those missed chances.

Yeah Poplatnik would have to be in one of the attacking mid 3 behind Dykes. 3 from Poplatnik, Pittman, Robinson, Forrest, Souda. Take your pick.

I just hope Gary gives him a chance tomorrow. If he won’t start him which I am sure he won’t then bring him on with 30min to go and push him up top with Dykes. He is one of those players that will create a goal or a chance out of nothing, and always seems so be in the right place at the right time.

Sky reporting that Dykes will not play today as we have agreed a deal with QPR for about £2m

He will be at the stadium but clearly not being risked in case he got injured to scupper the deal.

So we are giving a keeper his debut & probably a first start for either Poplatnik or SKA - avoiding defeat today will be a very tall order indeed.

Have to question the wisdom of agreeing a deal immediately before this game...anyone would think the club think we don’t stand a chance so we voluntarily weaken the side cause we’d lose regardless.

No Dykes,no hope.Any slim chance we had has gone with him imo. Im dreading this already.

Team news up on twitter at 15:15. If Dykes does go for £2 million, that’s enough to pay off the debt, buy Ross Stewart and still have money in the bank. I’ll be interested to see the “ambition” of the board. By the way I wish Lyndon Dykes all the best for the future, he has been a great player for us, always gave 100%. I will watch his career with interest and hope he succeeds down south, I believe he will, he has all the attributes and personality/character to succeed. I also hope he chooses to represent Scotland when international’s begin again. We could do with him in the squad, cheers Lyndon

Oh well we at least got the 2M we valued him at, in that respect it's great seeing a Livi board that don't give away our players for next to nothing, Snoddy, Griffiths, Muzza, Dave MacKay all spring to mind, then selling Dorrans sell on clause for buttons by Madsonne.

Just need someone else to score the penalties now, big Hammy takes a good pen, hope he gets one today against Sevco. Huge game for him, his debut outing in the Premiership he scored against St Mirren, was also Holts first game in charge I think, mon Hammy you can do it.

Interesting that Hammy gets the nod ahead of the two new signings, especially as they have made sub appearances but Hammy hasn’t.

Delighted with a point. Defence seemed more like we have been used to & I would now hand Max the starting jersey in goal, he didn’t have to do much but he just seemed to be a real goalie

Got to hold my hands up.I wasnt expecting that.Defencivly outstanding.Was like the Alamo at times but they stuck to their guns and deservedly got their point.Really hope we can find a quality striker. Im not enamoured with what weve got post Dykes.But well done the Lions,shut a few people up,including myself.

Much happier with the shape of the team. The effort and commitment was 1st class, the team worked their socks off . Hope Marv’s injury isn’t too bad, we look stronger in the middle with Pittman out wide and Sibbald, Bartley and Holt. Fitzwater looks like a decent CB when all he has to do is defend, him and Guthrie were immense, I’d give Guthrie the MotM, but a lot of good performances today. Both the fullbacks were solid defensively, I hope Macmillan now gets a good run in the team, I think he deserves it. How sweet would it have been if Sibbald had managed to chip their keeper from the halfway line
Yeah I agree Max looked good today too, fine save from the Barasic free kick, I’d start him against Aberdeen.

Excellent performance, and yet another season when Livi take the first points from league leaders, Hearts two seasons back, Celtic last season, and now Sevco, what a team.

Guthrie back to his best, Fitzwater having an outstanding game too, playing in his natural position, even Devlin had a solid game, and course McMillan with another solid display, agree that he deserves to start games for us now. Also agree about Stryjek, good solid performance, good save from the free kick, and his decision making was a lot better than McCrorie's, should keep his place next week against Aberdeen.

Almost scored with that attempted lob from inside our own half by Sibbs too, what a goal that would've been, and wee Robbo had a decent chance getting in behind them. Thought Hammy did ok leading the line first half, ran out of steam in the 2nd half, which is understandable, was always a big ask for him but he did fine.

All in all an excellent point, all our defensive worries should fade away after that performance, we're back to our best throwing bodies in front of shots and getting headers away from crosses.

We'll see better how our attacking players do against the other teams, where we'll get more chances to score and play inside opponents halves. As long as we defend as solidly we'll be fine without Dykes.

I still want the board to show some ambition and go after Ross Stewart, I think we’ll struggle to score with our current Centre Forwards

Poplatnik doesn’t look like he plays the hold up target man role; SKA was better at it. Neither has much pace though & neither does Hammy. I agree we can’t judge the forwards on this game but none of the current options give me any confidence that they will score that often.

Yeh,weve surely got to go out and get a decent striker in.Im with you Bertie.Im not enamoured with what we have up front at the moment.We could really struggle if we dont imo.

I’m mentioning Ross Stewart at County, does anyone know of any other centre forwards we could target?

Hes the main man for County.Doubt theyed be willing to let him go to a rival.We will have our work cut out to get a player of Dykes ilk.Thats if we replace him.

Troy wrote:Hes the main man for County.Doubt theyed be willing to let him go to a rival.We will have our work cut out to get a player of Dykes ilk.Thats if we replace him.

I’m speculating, but if we were to put in a reasonable initial bid, I think it might unsettle him, I’m guessing, but I think he might prefer to play for an SPFL club in the Central Belt. And nowadays there’s no point in clubs keeping a player that wants to go, that doesn’t want to be there. Also we would want to play him up front, through the middle, unlike County who play him mostly on the left, again I’m speculating, but I think he’d prefer to play through the middle.

Forrest had zero efforts on goal too, but we know he will in other games, and will bag us some goals, Dykes hasn't scored in open play either, so I really don't see us having a problem with him leaving. We wont be pinned back like this against the other 9 teams in the league, and I have every confidence in a mid 3 attacking players getting us chances, Poplatnik looked lively around the box against St Mirren, this really isn't the game to judge our strikers.

As I said previously, defend solidly and we only need 1 goal, we have plenty players in the squad to chip in with the odd goal here and there, we'll be fine.

I'd love Stewart at Livi, but would put money on us not splashing out the kind of dosh to get him, or anyone else for hundreds of thousands of pounds. It goes against everything this current board stand for, and how we've been run the last 4 seasons.

Yeh agree L/F.Cant see us breaking the bank when the chance is there for the club to be on sound footing. As i said Gary will have his work cut out to replace Dykes undoubted quality.

My opinion so far in games I've seen is, against St Mirren we shaded it and deserved a draw, but got let down defensively, should've had a point from the game.

Hibs, weren't being outplayed, but got caught out with just about every ball into our box, and got a doing because we were a shambles at the back.

Motherwell we outplayed them for most of the game, and yet again were let down with their only 2 shots on goal going in the net, came back and got the draw but should've won that game.

Today defended fantastically, shape was right, players in their proper positions, and got a deserved draw.

If we continue to play like that in a back four, with players playing in their proper positions, then those first 3 games played over and we'd take at least 4 points, possibly 7. With or without Dykes too.

I'll admit I was as worried as anyone the first few games, but it was like the Miller situation, the formation and selection was all wrong, I always thought we had the players to keep us up, now that has been fixed I think we'll comfortably stay away from the bottom spots.

Managers obv knew Dykes would be going, with all the interest in him, and valued him at 2M, and got it, so there has been no surprises here, they planned for it. On the face of it we've signed Sal and Poplatnik as his replacement, along with Hammy coming back, just have to have faith in their decisions and if it doesn't work out that they'll replace them with someone else.

To be fair, Dykes was possibly the only player who would get pass marks from the first 2 games, even though the service to him was terrible. It was Dykes and his physicality that forced the mistake from Lamie that got us the penalty that got us back in the game quickly against Motherwell, which helped us earn the point. As I’ve said I’m happy with Forest, I think he’ll do the business for us, Pittman moved from the centre out to the right I think will be good for us with Sibbald moved up centrally I think will be good too. But I think the effectiveness of our offensive unit, a lot of it depends on our solo CF.

I think we just need someone who gives us an out ball, and holds it up long enough to bring the midfield into play, same as Dolly did when Hardie was out injured and we had no other striker, and Lee Miller in the play offs. Neither of those two were prolific goal scorers, but did a good job leading the line.

Having someone like Dykes would prob be the difference from being 5th/3rd, to being 7th/9th, fantastic if we could get a replacement of his quality, but if not then we'll still be fine.

Ultimately though we're a club that targets players to develop their talent, not one that spends big money to push for a higher place up the league. Last season it almost backfired on St Johnstone doing that, and they're an established Premiership team. They budgeted for the top six, had a really poor start and just scraped 6th place before lockdown stopped the football. I can't see Ward taking that gamble, investing a few hundred thousand on a striker. He's far too prudent and sensible with money, not letting his heart rule his head, which is a good thing, many a club has come a cropper with owners/Chairmen etc doing that.

Yeh,totally agree L/F.I really dont think wee will go out and spend hundreds of thousands on a replacement for Dykes.Its not and never has been our way.We were lucky we had him for the short time he was here.FWIW we cant afford to only raise our game against only the bigger clubs in the division this season.Will have to put our trust in Gary if he feels that we can go with what weve got up front left.Me,im not so sure if the new lads have it to push on for a whole season.For me it wont be a well known name that comes in if any.Time will tell i suppose,but I take your point about bringing someone relatively unknown and nurturing them in order to help us stay in this league. Interesting times ahead.

I cant see us spending much if anything on a replacement; after all we are only one more c0ck-up from the whole league being called off again. With probably about 1.5 million in the bank after paying fees and QoS sell on costs that would still virtually guarantee the club's survival for another season. There's a number of clubs in our division that couldn't survive another shut-down.

Back to the game; well what a way for Guthrie to prove me wrong. Someone obviously had a word with the lad as he stopped over-elaborating; and stuck to doing the simple things well. He worked well with the CB and didn't have an argument with anyone even when a couple of lapses from Pittman very nearly let them in. Also where the f### did that long throw come from?

Moving on to the entire defence; could they have played any better or been more solid? Frankly I doubt it. On that performance its going to take some doing for ATS to win his place back ahead of McMillen. The same goes for Brown and Fitzwater. As for Ambrose....

Midfield was also solid mainly thanks to Bartley and Sibbald; Pittman was almost his usual self; Forrest put in a decent shift even if he had a bit of a rough time with Kent particularly but seemed to work well with McMillen.

Hamilton tried hard which is admirable considering he hadn't started a game for almost two years but Poplatnik and Kouider Aissa definitely struggle playing as a lone front-man and really need someone to play off.

Finally Styjek; on that performance he looked every bit the number one jersey. Obviously the real test of a goalkeeper is consistency so its dangerous to base too much on one performance but he really did show himself to already he well ahead of McCrorie. Question is can we actually afford to drop McCrorie to the bench? Is the agreement with Sevco that we play him all the games available etc?

Finally what was Gerrard going on about with the line "Livingston always try to bully us?" He used it more than once and frankly the thought of any team with Morelos; Kent and Jacks in the side being bullied is surely laughable.

Anyway bring on Aberdeen.