Livi v St Midden

Might as well start this.As against County,this falls into the must not lose category. Stenny and Airdrie were ok,but this is a different kettle of fish and so important we take something from the game.Hopefully Stryjek back between the sticks and Gary naming our strongest starting 11 as Saints will be gunning for us.Weve got to cut out stupid mistakes at the back and pose a real threat up front. If the opportunitie arises for us first weve got to finish them off.Could create a we gap that would be crucial to us with the two below us having games in hand. Any way cant wait and hopefully the Lions will do the buisness.Cmon Livi,Do it

Not confident as we never come back well from an “international break” even when we play Betfred Games. That said I’d go as far as to say this is a must win, we cannot simply look to not losing due to their games in hand (even if they are unlikely to win them, because by holding us to a draw the gap stays the same & gives them belief) - we need the win to open up a gap that makes the games in hand largely irrelevant & to prevent them building any confidence that they could catch us.

There was nothing between the sides at Panda Park apart from the fact they won (they weren’t better than us & a draw would have been a fair reflection on performances).

So let’s get the act together defensively & take confidence from having the best Betfred Group record in terms of points acquired & GD & score a few to boost the confidence in the league.

Hoping we start Mullin & Forrest again, they're both goal scorers, and it would be a real handful for St Mirren to deal with. Big JET doesn't have to score (although i hope he does and his sharpness in front of goal keeps improving), i think his physical presence would be enough to give the likes of Mullin & Forrest room to get off shots at goal, Pittman too will benefit from those two playing at the same time.

A win would be terrific, draw a bit meh, and a loss a disaster, so no pressure then. Mon Livi, you can do it.

Troy wrote:Might as well start this.As against County,this falls into the must not lose category. Stenny and Airdrie were ok,but this is a different kettle of fish and so important we take something from the game.Hopefully Stryjek back between the sticks and Gary naming our strongest starting 11 as Saints will be gunning for us.Weve got to cut out stupid mistakes at the back and pose a real threat up front. If the opportunitie arises for us first weve got to finish them off.Could create a we gap that would be crucial to us with the two below us having games in hand. Any way cant wait and hopefully the Lions will do the buisness.Cmon Livi,Do it

McCrorie is in isolation after testing positive coming back from Scotland U21 games, so def will be Stryjek in goal. Thank goodness he was back training on Thurs or we'd have been left with just big Stretch in goals, and no proper back up keeper. Think ATS was selected as designated replacement Keeper if Stretch got injured in the Betfred games.

Yeh.Sincerely hope Robbies ok.Not being disrespectfull but i think Gary would have struggled today against Saints.As ive said this is a step up in opposition and im glad weve got Max back for such an important game. Really need to do the buisness here today.Looking forward to hopefully getting those oh so valuable 3 points.Mon the Lions..

Nasty looking weather at the moment... we never do well in nasty weather.... I’m getting the fear....

To be fair I’d be getting the fear if it was sunny.... but... we don’t do well in nasty weather.

Apparently to clear up this afternoon. Yeh ive got that uneasy feeling as well. Hopefully get off to a good start,cant afford to drop points here.Players have to take the responsability of getting us away from this position.We shall see.

We'll not need to water the pitch anyway, all the junior games are off with waterlogged pitches.

Be a laughing stock if they watered that pitch.Certainly not needed today.

So far so terribly dull & poor quality on the stream too.

Yeh would agree Bertie,mines isnt great either. Got to take these chances.

Half time & it is obvious why these two sides are 10th & 11th... they are both very poor teams. There are a 2 or 3 players on each side that are not bad individually but neither set of 11 players are functioning as a team. There is very little in the way of creativity & even less in the way of anything positive in the final third.

It has 0-0 or a scrappy winner (probably for Saints) written all over it

Stream's been good for me, just a wee bit blurred for about 10 seconds then fine again. Most annoying thing is the guy operating the camera zooming in on the dug outs too much, and staying there when the game is going on, lost the ball a few times too.

Couple of half chances inside the box but nowhere near good enough up front. Marv and Brown have been well off their game too, couple of bombscares from them being mugged after making mistakes in defence, but we got away with it. Devlin's deliveries are poor too. Would switch Lawson to RB and bring Serrano on, replace Brown with Efe, and take Marv off and get Mullin on, dropping Sibbs into his place alongside Holt. Holt has been good, so has Sibbs, Forrest gets pass marks.

A lot to do in the 2nd half to win this game, we need to make some changes though as it hasn't been great.

Guys we are going to be relegated this season, we are a shadow of the side that won the third tier title never mind the side that has been in the top tier for the last two seasons

Dire , Dire , Dire -

Second half was even worse than the first, no urgency, no invention, no penetration, no attempts to score, no sense of anyone taking responsibility & no leadership on or off the pitch.

Absolute garbage & I’m glad I am at home rather than at the ground cos then I’d really be miserable.

Will only make one apology in my post.Sorry guys,that has relegation written all over it imo.I said beforehand this was a must win game,and it was.Half that team at most underperformed and need to take a serious look at themselves.Harsh but true.Jet must be doing things in training that we dont see on a Saturday. Could have put us on the road with a sitter early in the game,but fluffed it.Holt made the wrong decision when through on goal as well.Says it all when a deflected goal downed us,which incidently i didnt see as my S T stream froze.Poor stream overall.Im gutted as this was an opportunitie to give us a wee bit breathing space.But of course i forgot,we always do it the hard way.Unfortunatly these games in hand will haunt us.Was hoping that we would not have to rely on favours from others,but we do now.Frustating i know,but do we have the fight to get us out of this? Im not so sure.Pouderpuff Livi is how i feel at the moment.No more sorrys Rant over!

Cannea wait till L/F s and Orcos response to this.Shocking.!

Didn't comment straight after the game because wanted to take emotional response to the defeat out of it, and try to be objective.

Game itself was pretty even, as Bertie said, two poor sides huffing and puffing away without much quality in the final third, it was a certainty they'd score a goal like that, we've had a few of those deflection going straight into our net, usually coming off Devlin.

I think Holt has to start making cold hard choices in his team selection and drop some big players, Marv hasn't been anything like he was last season and that was his worst game yet, really don't need both him and Holt in the team, and it'll free up a spot for a more creative player up front.

For all Efe makes the odd bombscare moment, he is our most creative defender for getting the ball forward, Brown hits every long ball up the pitch to the opposition, not one pass went to a Livi player, so for me it's Efe and Guthrie in defence.

What we're doing at LB is bewildering, sticking Lawson in there when both ATS and Serrano are fit, just stop messing around sticking players into positions they don't play at when we don't need to. Devlin isn't playing that good he should be a stick on at RB either, his deliveries hardly ever hit a Livi player in the box, we need to try either Lawson or McMillan in there rather than chopping and changing LB's, which for me was a much more settled position.

Up front i just don't know where to start, JET isn't doing it, but understand why Holt persisted with him, trying to get him fit and sharp, but at what point does it become time to judge him fully, if he's good enough to be first choice, so far i'd say Tiffoney did better, and Poplatnik shows more promise and deserving a go for 4 or 5 games to see how he gets on. We're well into the season now and still no further forward in having a decent striker.

WINGERS- for the love of god will Holt start playing both Mullin & Forrest in the league, why sign Mullin and piss about switching him and Forrest as starting players.

So in my opinion Holt has to take a lot of responsibility here, if he doesn't sort things out soon it'll be his job on the line. This isn't a knee jerk reaction, i still don't think a top 6 spot is beyond us, but there is now a big gap between us and Utd, and both Killie & Motherwell are a win or two away from leaving us behind too. However 2 or 3 wins ourselves could dramatically change things again, but we need to start picking up those point sooner rather than later.

On relegation, Accies are still 5 points below us and looking even worse than us, then there are a group of 5 teams within 3 points of us, St Mirren just a point below us and the rest a point or 3 above, so it is all still to play for. We're not detached sitting in the bottom 2, but we're sitting balanced on the scales, precariously close to going the wrong way, and desperately need a win to tip us the right way.

My relegation comment was based on the farce of a performance today, we are currently in same situation Hearts found themselves in last season, losing games we should be winning. Right now our team is less than the sum of its parts, just like Hearts last season. We might stay above Accies if we don’t improve because they are arguably still worse than us but it will depend on our results against them.

Of all the teams in the league that should be able to cope with no fans it is surely us, we have the lowest level of support anyway but they simply are not performing.

Holt has apparently stated he could leave if he can’t get them playing, so hopefully that is a sign that he is taking responsibility rather than abrogating it... but it could also be an indication that he has given up.

If they can get their act together - and I agree that Brown & Bartley are way below what they were last season. Devlin doesn’t hide but is not in good form, Guthrie is also below last season’s form by some margin. Pittman is below his usual level but still one of our better players, Holt played well for most of the game but we don’t need him, Bartley & Sibbs in the same team... Sibbs is trying but not getting much support. Forrest is our player of the season so far but must be wondering what he has come in to & he can’t do it on his own.
JET is a big lumbering waste of a shirt so far & just looks unfit & overweight. As Troy said he should have done much better with the early chance after their keeper mis-parried.

Poplatnik, I’ve really not seen enough of him to know what he can do but he surely deserves as much of a chance as E-T . Tiff at least pesters the opposition, Robbo can do that too but he has also been below par this season. Mullin has shown what he can do against the lower league sides but not seen it in his fleeting league appearances. Serrano started well but now couldn’t cross the road never mind a football.

I’d be inclined to have Stryjek in goal, McMillan at RB, ATS at LB, Ambrose & Guthrie in the middle.
Holt & Sibbs as defensive mids, Forrest, Pittman as attacking mids, Pops & Tiffoney up front. With Mullin, Robbo & even JET as potential subs, maybe the latter would benefit coming on fresh against tiring defenders. Forrest could also play up front instead of one of the pair I mentioned, with Mullin taking the wide role.

Bottom line just now is we are too easy to defend against due to poor hold up play, lack of runners getting on to any lay offs & basic lack of movement.

Yeah i saw that article about Holt, seems like he's at a loss as to why we're in a slump, and just keeps coming out with the same excuses. Not putting heads in where it hurts etc etc, he's needing to look at his team selection and tactics, and also his substitutions, leaving them late and swapping like for like when it isn't working wont change anything.

Funnily enough i did noticed a subdued Martindale the last couple of games too, sitting in the dugout, rather than his normal self standing up shouting all the time, similar to when Kenny Miller wasn't working, so perhaps things are going on behind the scenes and a managerial change is on its way.

Hmmm. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly & expecting different results.

Yeah, I’ve been saying for a while he needs to examine his own decisions as well as hammering the players for their poor decision making.

The bad news in all of this is that it has the hallmarks of a club in a downward spiral heading for a crash & burn.

Last season has raised expectations at Livi with a lot of our fans getting carried away, although i also want us in the top 6, i'd still be happy just staying up. Accies are more looking like last season's Hearts, this could finally be their time up in the top flight, they're like cockroaches surviving a nuclear holocaust though, so we really don't want to be in a dog fight with them for 11th & 12th place.

Glad we're back to playing a cup game next week, if Holt's still here he'll need to win it or i think that'll be him out, just wish our cup wins would lift us for league games, and we'd take the confidence to shoot at the goal, we were scoring for fun in the betfred cup but seem scared to have a shot in the league.

As i said yesterday that game was so important to us,and we blow it.I gave up on top six aspirations ages ago as i could see a pattern developing which has unfortunatly come to fruition. Its gonna take a big turnaround for us to get ourselves out of this situation. The players have to believe that they are good enough and not rely on others doing us favours,although at the moment it looks likely that we will have to rely on fortune favouring us.Dont think a change of manager will help either, although i can understand Garys frustrations having to come out every other week with the same excuses.

Agree with Livi and Bertie regarding JET, persisting with him is great to see BUT how long do you do it for?? He is miles away from being fit enough and good enough to make a difference.
What does Pop have to do to get a start and a run of games, especially in the league?? He is a Striker and needs to be given a chance. Lad has played 260 minutes of football this season, scored 2 goals and has 3 assists which is hell of allot better than JET.
Pop and Tiff need to play and need to be given a chance, because i am sure they can’t do no worse.