Hibs v Livi

Massive game for us if we've any chance of keeping our season alive and catching the sheep, a win here would put us within 5 points of them, and we play them next at home a week on Sat, which could see us close it to 2 pts.

Wonder if we'll start either Ambrose or Lithgow alongside Guthrie, or maybe even ATS, Fitzwater was knackered against Aberdeen. Lithgow's long throws would cause Hibs problems, Porteous is always an accident waiting to happen when put under pressure. Hopefully keep Stryjek in goals too, would even consider Kabia up front, he's a right nuisance in games he's played, and winds opposition players right up.

Really fancy us for this, need that 2nd goal to give us a cushion, then a 3rd to kill them off, 3-1 Livi.

We will not catch Aberdeen, they are 8 points ahead, we need at least 3 wins from our last 4 games, it will not happen.

A win here would be great just because it’s them. However, they have been getting results & we haven’t even if we did play well at Pittodrie

Beat Hibs away, Aberdeen at home, both very doable, then beat St Johnstone in our last game away from home when they'll have feckall to play for, sorted.

As ever I admire your optimism... you are also relying on them losing all of their remaining games.

Our form is actually pretty good, we've only lost 1 game in our last 5, Celtic at Parkheid. Aberdeen was a draw after 90 mins, and still a draw in ET, so i'm not taking that as a loss in normal play, like a league game would be.

The main thing for me is our players attitudes, if they're still going to go for it then we have every chance we can do it.

Hoping to get away from work early for this.We played better than I had envisaged on Saturday and was a pity to go out in that fashion.We won't catch Hibs imo but as long as there's still a slim chance of catching the sheep hopefully the lads will give it their best shot.Think a point wouldn't be a disaster considering St Johnston still breathing down our necks.Not entirely confident but won't doubt us as we are capable at our best to get something from this.Good luck the Lions..

Our one “real” defeat in the last 5 games was an embarrassment, I believe it was a record breaking win for them head to head against us & by their worst team in a very long time.

Hope we get a referee who knows the difference between a foul and a dive for this one. That is all.

Aberdeen have a pretty tough last 4 games playing both of the old firm; us at Livingston (we should be fully up for this one) and Hibs away. Hibs have been slightly under-par in the head to heads but they seem to have their tails up at the moment (hopefully our 3-nil win tonight wont dent that too much).

orco wrote:Hope we get a referee who knows the difference between a foul and a dive for this one. That is all.

Craig Napier, never heard of him, so if he's officiated us before he must have been ok or i'd have remembered the name.

Hibs strolling this, first goal was far too easy, and you just knew Boyle would go over Efe's lef for the pen. We need a big change 2nd half, not making any threat on Hibs' goal, get Forrest or Kabia on to have a go at them.

Yeh,really no forward threat as opposed to Hibs.Very comfortable for them.Effe being Effe.

Will keep it brief. Shite first half,slightly better 2nd but the damage already done.Sitter from Forrest just about summed up our night.4ths a gonner for me with septic fechin it up so far.Cannea believe I'm shouting for Sevco,oh well Com on.

Chances we had 2nd half we should've got at least a draw, as you say Troy, damage was done 1st half. Dunno why DM played 3 CB's, hasn't worked for us since the dream team at the back disbanded. Holt tried it at the start of the season and it was a disaster, and again tonight.
All it did was take away our goal threat, which was glaringly apparent when Forrest came on for Efe, and in the first 10 mins we played better than the whole 1st half.

Poplatnik almost got it in at the far post from a Devlin cross, then Forrest missed a great chance with a route one ball from Stryjek, plus a few pot shots from Sibbs, needed one of those to go in for us to have had a chance at taking something.

Jet is the coolest penalty taker i've seen, big massive run up, little stop and go, making the keeper commit himself, then sticks it away in the opposite side. Gonna really miss him if/when he goes next season. Took him a while, but he's a great player to watch playing for us now.

Looking like us winning would've made no difference if Aberdeen beat Celtic, but hope to feck Sevco hold out with their 1-0 lead over St Johnstone to make sure we don't lose 5th place.

Sevco and Celtic and funny ones now, both have no incentive in the league, and Celtic are out of the cup now too, so their season is well and truly over, making results against them more unpredictable. Us have Sevco at home could see them resting some players for the cup, and us getting something there. However a win against the sheep at home would more or less ensure we hang onto 5th place.

Sake, some Sevco jobber i've never heard of gave away a pen in the 94th min for St Johnstone to equalise. That's them only 3 points behind us now, great.

Wait and see what team Sevco put out against St Johnstone on Sun in the cup, and what the score will be.

Yeh,get your drift L/F.Sevco were under streangh tonight.Arseholes.Hopefully the same against us but I doubt it.You just get the feeling its coming down to that last game of the season.Just hope we've not downed tools.Its in our hands fortunately.

We will finish the season in 6th place after 3 more defeats & have less points than at least 1 of the bottom 6.

While that would mean a disappointing end to the season, we have once again confounded the pundits by finishing in the top half & we have reached a cup final. By any measure you care to apply that represents a superb season.

Jeezo Bertie, you're worse than yon boy doing our commentary, and he's absolutely brutal, always looking for the other team to score against us.

We don’t play after the split, simple as.... but my post ended on a positive note.

We'll revisit your posts after our next 3 games.

Davie admitting post match that he got it wrong tactically last night.Man enough to own up,maybe he should visit the forums and listen to the fans views.Might help him.Think we are going to need at least one more huge performance in these last 3 games from the lads.Theve been magnificent, would be a crying shame to end the season on a downer.Although the job at the start was achieved. Mon Livi,one last push..

For both goals I thought Longridge was heavily to blame.

For the first he was meant to be covering Boyle but gets drawn forward leaving Boyle in acres of space and able to take as much time as he likes (although Guthrie seemed to be caught a bit in two minds as well).

For the second Longridge is again too far forward leaving Holt to try and make the challenge but, having been booked just moments before, he cant go for his customary "take him out" challenge. This kind of leaves everything on Ambrose; unfortunately on a one v one situation Boyle is odds on to hit the deck even though stepping over Ambrose leg would have been the easier option.

I got the feeling that Martindale was going to give Lithgow a start no matter what but it was a really strange setup with Ambrose playing more on the left, when he's more often on the right and the reverse being the case for Lithgow.

Thought McMillan did really well when he came on; virtually never got much out of Boyle after that.

Durnford wrote:For both goals I thought Longridge was heavily to blame.

For the first he was meant to be covering Boyle but gets drawn forward leaving Boyle in acres of space and able to take as much time as he likes (although Guthrie seemed to be caught a bit in two minds as well).

For the second Longridge is again too far forward leaving Holt to try and make the challenge but, having been booked just moments before, he cant go for his customary "take him out" challenge. This kind of leaves everything on Ambrose; unfortunately on a one v one situation Boyle is odds on to hit the deck even though stepping over Ambrose leg would have been the easier option.

I got the feeling that Martindale was going to give Lithgow a start no matter what but it was a really strange setup with Ambrose playing more on the left, when he's more often on the right and the reverse being the case for Lithgow.

Thought McMillan did really well when he came on; virtually never got much out of Boyle after that.

From what i gather with Martindale's formation, it was Efe's job to cover Boyle for the first goal, and prob the same for the 2nd one you've said there too. In a 3 CB formation with WB's moving forward a lot, the 3 CB's have to take the normal job of the FB's, and 2 of them act as FB's moving out to the wings covering the WB's.

It was a mistake by DM going with a back 5, the 3 CB's just haven't worked for us since Halkett and Gallagher left. DM went with the 3 CB for Efe to mark Boyle, same as he did in the cup final with Marv marking Rooney, neither worked for us, and cost us dearly both games. He is overthinking things, and instead of setting us up to stop a danger man playing, he's needing to just look at what's best for Livi, and how we play. In both games it ended up detrimental to our own attacking play, making us weaker, and didn't really work defensively either.

He admitted as much post match and made the change at HT, moving to a back 4, taking off Efe and sticking on Forrest, and it made a big difference to us. Although the damage was done in the first half, Poplatnik and Forrest had chances to score and we could've got something from the game. Forrest especially should've scored. Max made 2 good saves from Nisbet too right enough but we were having to take risks chasing the game.

And now we don’t have a game until NEXT Saturday.... it will be like coming back after an international break... we will be useless for at least 45 minutes.

There was never a prayer of us catching Aberdeen going into the Hibs match.

Yeh agree Bertie.Worryingly it looks like St Johnstone feel they still have something to play for and are giving it their all.Whereas we seem to be going through the motions of winding the season down.Of course i want us to get that 5th place, and hopefully we can as I've said before give it that one final push.Seasons nearly over for us and today is a flavour of no football for us,which we'll have to bare for a couple of months.God I hate the close season.🥺.