Livi v St Mirren

A 6 pointer game, we win and catch up level with St Mirren on points, lose and go 6 points behind them, suppose a draw would do if we beat Ross County in a couple of weeks, but would rather we got the win here to take some pressure off going into that game, and the St Johnstone game next Saturday.

Anyway, lets get stuck in and have a go at them, with a natural striker starting, getting proper support from our midfield. Shinnie playing as a 10 behind Anderson/Hamilton/panayiotou even. Hammy scored against the midden a couple of seasons ago in a 2-0 win, Holts first game in charge iirc, maybe he should get a chance to start.

Mon Livi, you can do this, lets get the 3 pts.

Adam Lewis out with a broken metatarsal, going to need surgery and expected to be at least 3 months before he can play again. Will this injury and illness gremlin ever feck off this season, just seems one thing after another for us.

Really difficult to judge this one till I see the starting lineup. As I've said the last couple of weeks our offense has been literally non existent and its cost us big time. Shame about Lewis,but just another to add to the list of walking wounded.If we can somehow find a threat up front we are capable of getting something from this.If not I reckon Goodwin will capitalise on our misfortune. We're at home so any advantage we get weve got to grab with both hands.Incidentally the weather is looking mingin tomorrow, and as such il be digging out ma big padded jacket for this.Anyway as always,turn up Livi and do the business, please!..

If this game was being played immediately after we beat Celtic then I’d have been confident… unfortunately 2 defeats, no goals scored & 5 conceded since that excellent win have left me unable to forecast anything other than a bad result.

Yeah it's the first home game after beating Celtic though, ignore those away losses, we can't seem to score a goal away from home in the league, home games have been a lot more positive, even the ones we lost.

Hopefully we'll continue to score the first goal, as we have done in every league home game, and like the Celtic game, make sure we don't concede. Would be great if we could score a 2nd this time too, came so close with Fitzwater's effort just before HT against Celtic, feeling it in my water we'll go 2-0 up tomorrow and see this out a lot more comfortably with a 2 goal cushion.

Mon Livi, lets do this and give us all a wee lift going into yet another International break.

We never seem to beat St Mirren when the weather is bad. Hope the rain stays off.

I thought we had the better of the first half, a few chances with Alnwick making one very good save and another attempt cleared off the line (looked in to me) but we were very “amateur hour” with our corner ending with them scoring what proved to be the winner. We didn’t attack the corner, we then defended the breakaway very poorly & it looked to me like Max should have saved the shot.

Second half was just a very poor game in which we never looked like scoring & neither did they - looked like we should have had a pen but the ref gave us nothing all match so we weren’t getting a pen even if a Saint took out a gun and shot one of our guys. TBH it is possible he got the possible pen decision correct as it was the wrong end for me to see it clearly.

It seems clear to me that we are in a 3-way dog fight with Dundee & Ross - if we lose in Dingwall then the writing is on the wall.

Furthermore, it is also clear to me that our management team don’t have the nous to get us out of trouble…but we all know it won’t change. So they desperately need to get back to doing the things that brought us success, being compact, defending like our lives depend on it, pressuring the first ball & winning the second ball (at the moment we are doing neither).

And here is the manager’s take on today…

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/david-martindale-blasts-livingston-boo-25123834

I tend to agree with both managers, we should not have lost & a draw would have been a fair reflection of the game.

However Mr Martindale accuses the boo-boys of undermining the team. I didn’t boo at the end, I don’t think I’ve ever booed my team, but the boos were half-hearted & came at the end of the game, so how in the world did they have a negative impact on the performance? It’s a “Smoke & mirrors” argument.*

He says the supporters expect top 6 & need some perspective… while I think this is true for some, this is the first time I’ve heard any booing & it seemed to me it was as a reaction to a poor second half performance not because of any unrealistic expectations. More smoke & mirrors.

Mr Martindale says there is a clue in the name supporter… they should support - well, it works both ways, there is also a clue in his job title, be it manager or head coach…. His job is to manage/coach the team… and yet with the exception of an admittedly excellent win over Celtic, we are seeing the same failings every week.

So blow away the smoke & take a look in the mirror.


* since posting the above I’ve heard that there were some behind the home dugout either booing or making very negative comments during the game & that DM’s comments were addressing that; if this is so then his comments are more understandable but are still a deflection from taking responsibility himself for the poor performances & results.

Sorry for the late post.Felt totally deflated coming away from that.Thought we deserved a share of the points at least.The luck hasn't been with us for god knows how long.Max should have done better for their goal imo,becoming a habit unfortunately. We had chances of our own but didn't capitalise, as I've said the luck is not with us at the moment.Some Saints fans telling me after the game we should have got a point from that and I tend to agree.On the booing at the end I can understand the frustrations of some supporters.Its horrible to hear but an indication of where we are at the moment.Hopefully the International break will help those walking wounded to get back to some sort of fitness. Its gonna be a long 2 weeks..

Yeah frustrating result, thought we were the better team in both halves, could've had 2 goals in both too, and had the game finished 4-1 or 4-2 it would've been a good refelction of chances created and taken with opportunities on goal. They shouldn't have scored the goal they did, Stryjek should've saved it, they should've scored the one from the free kick over the top of our defence though, but blasted tthe volley over the bar.
We should've scored 4 or 5, and 4 were unreal how they didn't go in.

Frustrating game to watch, war of contrition for a good spell, then with patches of good play getting in on goal for us, and a sucker punch of a goal to concede. If we get one of those to go in i reckon we'd have strolled that game, but we didn't, and the more chances we had that didn't go in, i got a bad feeling in my stomach we were never going to score.

Would put it down to one of those days when it just doesn't go for you, but the position we're in, it gets magnified into a major problem with us not winning games we 'deserve to be at least getting a point', the longer that happens we can't keep saying we didn't deserve to lose.

On one point though, i agree with Bertie, we need to start making sure we're tighter at the back, and stop conceding soft goals (Stryjek esp), Utd aren't a great team by any stretch of the imagination, neither are St Johnstone, but both are defensively sound, and one goal wins games for them.

Martindale getting into a war of words with the fans isn't going to get them onside either, needs to concentrate on what he can affect, and start winning points, then the fans will get back onside.

Their frustration is with results, piss poor away performances, and frustrating home defeats. Maybe annoying for him to hear calls of dissent from the stands, but his job isn't to get into a slagging match with Livingston fans, that just creates more friction.

Yep agree L/F.So many games here weve created the better chances and come away with nothing to show for it.So frustrating and the sounds emanating from the stand is understandable if at times a wee bit disappointing. Hopefully by the law of averages we start to put these chances away.Weve got to get ourselves back to our old selves,otherwise its a slippery slope relying on others to do us favours.Testing times ahead methinks.

We definitely deserved to get something from that game but lady luck is not on our side at the moment. We should be starting with at least one recognised striker. The Celtic game was a one off with Shinnie in that role. I think back nostalgically to the days of Gallagher, Halkett, Lithgow when I was never unduly worried if the opposition mounted an attack because I was confident that our back line would deal with it. My football philosophy is get the defence right first then deal with the rest. The aforementioned three were the basis of our promotion to the SPL in my opinion. This season my heart is in my mouth when the ball goes towards our goal.

Re the Martindale thing with the booing, he was ill advised to comment but you know Davie, he wears his heart on his sleeve. In saying that, there were loads of negative comments being shouted along from me all game. It annoys the hell out of me. I get frustrated too when things aren't going well but clearly players and management are not going to be inspired hearing negativity. If you can't support them then shut up and vent your wrath afterwards in the bar or on the forum.

Anyway, you know what they say about things evening themselves out over the season. If that is the case we are due a load of good fortune soon.

Fans are always moaning aunts, even when doing well you'll get some moaning, we were 5-0 up against Hearts and passing it about the back line and i heard a few shouting to get the ball up the pitch, as if we were a goal behind FFS!!

We've turned into St Mirren fans at home now though, moaning at everything all game, but it isn't likely to get better until we start winning points.

Personally i would rather we kept it as positive as we could during the game, trying to gee the players up, then showed any frustration with the result after the game has finished by booing them off the pitch.

Signs are starting to look bad for Martindale though, once our own fans turn against him it's only a matter of time before he either has enough and walks, or gets told to step aside.

Would love it if he managed to turn it around like Davidson did for St Johnstone last season, not Trophy wise, one has already gone, but clawing his way up the table beating St Mirren to 6th place, then us to 5th, still hoping things will settle down for us when players are all back, Pittman and Sibbs are huge losses, so would Shinnie be if he is long term injured. But agree with Orco, we need to play a proper striker off Shinnie, Hamilton would be a lot better at winning headers, and with Shinnie beside him it could work as a great partnership.