Livi v St Mirren

Massive game for us as we stand on the edge of the top six, could really go either way, always close games against St Mirren. They usually score a worldy from 25 yards against us, from a player that hasn't scored for a season or two, so hopefully we're as committed to blocking shots as we were at Tynecastle, and don't stand off inviting a shot.

Should be a good home support with all the free tickets being snapped up, looking forward to it.

Saints have turned a massive corner since early December when they appeared to be in free fall; now they are looking more likely to get top 6 then anyone else in mid table

They also play Dundee soon so from their perspective if they win their next two (us and Dundee) they are in great shape. By the same token our next two are them & Dundee and the same is true for us.

The free tickets are a great idea but whenever we have done it recently the game has been a damp squib.

Wonder what the chances are of us going 4-4-2 with

 .                                 Stryjek



Devlin              Fitzwater           Obileye           Penrice



Bailey                Holt                Omeonga         Forrest



                         Anderson         Nouble    

Radical idea i know, going with a front 2, but i think it balances out the team a lot better than sticking Forrest on the right wing (dropping Bailey), so Nouble can play on the left, or putting Nouble up front and dropping Anderson, neither gives us a good balance. Forrest is far better on the left, as is Nouble, playing either in other positions just takes the best from them. Having a 4-4-2 means both can play on the left side of the pitch, even working overlaps with each other, and Penrice, whilst having Devlin and Bailey on the other wing, and Anderson staying centre, giving us one hell of an attacking threat.

Also looking like Goodwin will be away to Aberdeen today, or the near future, so should unsettle them a good bit.

Good luck to him.Hope tomorrow's game goes ahead and we put on a good show for the kids.Its important we get a load of them on board,and hopefully put on a good display to encourage them to come back.Huge game for both teams and so hard to call.Hopefully with home advantage and a decent atmosphere we get back to winning ways.Could go a long way as to our aspirations for this season.A share of the spoils wouldn't be a disaster, but hopefully we can go one better and get ourselves into that top 6.Wont be easy as Saints are doing relatively well. Feel weve got to come out of the traps firing on all cylinders and have a real go.Going to be baltic again,hopefully the Lions can warm us up.Wrap up well and as always Mon the Lions..

Not sure if I blame Forrest for giving away the corner that led to their goal. He could have let the St Mirren player get control of the ball, block their cross and give away a corner which led to a goal anyway. He was definitely forcing an episode of the Alan Forrest show after that, trying to make amends. I'd have been happy with a point if you'd asked me at 3pm, but it's a bit deflating to concede late on.

I would blame him for conceding the corner, the player he tackled was facing the touch line, stay on your feet & make him earn anything he gets, don’t give them it as a gift.

That aside, I agree with you, over the piece I thought we were the slightly better side & until his nonsense booking Nouble was outstanding. How Gollum deemed that a booking was a complete and utter mystery. He won the head with the Saints player climbing all over him, he shrugs him off & gets booked. After that he was scared to make a serious challenge in case he got another booking for nothing. It was the right decision to sub him because of that but we certainly missed him after that.

The build up to our goal was superb.

Max had very little to do & typically they scored the equaliser from distance (looked like with the aid of a deflection too although I’m not sure).

Soto looks like he could be a decent acquisition although he probably tried too many flicks, his first couple of touches were exquisite though. Would like to see him with the ball at his feet attacking a defender or running onto a through ball. Deserved red card for Dunn but it was too late in the game to really make a difference. Saints had defended pretty solidly all game & that wasn’t going to change.

St Johnstone beating Hearts was the biggest disappointment though.

Nouble and Obileye being subbed lost us a lot of height defending that corner, Forrest obv didn't mean to concede it, but it ended up costing us 2 pts.

Usual tight game against each other, thought we had it in the bag so tough one to take ending the game with a point a piece.

Shows you can't take anything for granted in the league too, that's Dundee and St Johnstone beaten Hearts, and we only managed a draw against them. Every game is a tough one just now with so much to play for, and out with the top 2 every place is up for grabs/undecided.

Yeah Soto looks handy, looking forward to seeing him getting more game time.

Came away from the stadium yesterday utterly deflated.Felt like a defeat for me.Davies face as they trudged off said it all really.We were the better team but once again we've shot ourselves in the foot.The substitutions when made albeit Ayo had to come off definitely unsettled us and Alan Forrest not clearing a simple ball cost us in the end.To early to judge Soto but looked useful the short time he was on.A point is not a disaster,but we can't afford to keep dropping them from winning positions. St Mirren dressing room was bouncing after that and I suspect you could hear a pin drop in ours.Just got to move on I guess,but for me a big opportunity lost,especially as we were hoping to send the kids home Happy,I suspect most would have gone home dissapointed as I did..

Having watched the highlights on Sportscene, Soto conned the ref for Dunne's red card, but Collum should've sent him off earlier for the foul he missed completely on Anderson's face.

Yeah as well as Forrest putting it out for a corner, his fresh air swipe to clear the ball was also costly, but then so was Penrice's poor marking, running away from marking the player that headed it back across our box, bit of a shitshow in defending all round.

Noticed us conceding a few goals this season by leaving players unmarked at our back post, or not covering that area, about time we addressed that weakness in our defending of set pieces and crosses into our box. We keep every player back for set pieces so no excuse not having someone either man marking or zonal marking around the back post/edge of the 6 yard box.

Another aspect of having everyone back at corners is the overcrowding, which means Max can’t get a clear line on punching away & players get in each other’s way resulting in fresh air swipes or hesitancy & sclaffed attempts at clearances.

Bit annoying at the other end too when we don't have anyone running into that area ourselves, and you see good balls going across their box being wasted. Frequently see us passing it about outside the box over on the wings but nobody in the box looking for a cross.

Liviforever wrote:Having watched the highlights on Sportscene, Soto conned the ref for Dunne's red card, but Collum should've sent him off earlier for the foul he missed completely on Anderson's face.

Yeah as well as Forrest putting it out for a corner, his fresh air swipe to clear the ball was also costly, but then so was Penrice's poor marking, running away from marking the player that headed it back across our box, bit of a shitshow in defending all round.

Noticed us conceding a few goals this season by leaving players unmarked at our back post, or not covering that area, about time we addressed that weakness in our defending of set pieces and crosses into our box. We keep every player back for set pieces so no excuse not having someone either man marking or zonal marking around the back post/edge of the 6 yard box.

I was sitting just up from the red card incident. Dunne definitely smashed Soto in the face with his forearm. If you were going solely by the TV footage it looks a lot less serious. Collum was close to the incident and saw what I did. The surprise was that he actually penalised St Mirren for the kind of thing they had been doing all game. Nouble was manhandled every time he got the ball yet he was the one who ended up with the booking. Of course the girly scream from Tait (?) no doubt forced the ref's hand. Saints used every trick in the book. The one where their player feigned a head injury on the half way line just as Devlin was running into the box had me raging. Every week we have to try to beat an opposition plus a referee.
It's no fair!

Can't really blame the ref this time though, it was our own doing giving away the corner, then not defending it very well, up till then St Mirren hadn't had a serious shot on our goal, in fact they hadn't even had a corner kick, we should've seen the game out comfortably.

Same with County, missing the penalty, and then not defending properly again cost us there.

That's 4 points that shouldn't have been dropped at home, which would have put us in 4th place. We can still get there, we've a good team and the likes of Nouble is making us even better, we have it in us to get up around the 4th to 6th places.

But only if refs give Nouble the benefit of any doubt they might have- the big lad is not a dirty player by any means & as a skilful ball player they ought to be protecting him not penalising him

As if it couldn't get more hilarious. St Mirren are appealing the red card given to the same player who wiped out Anderson with nothing givin.Hope he gets a retrospective ban for the heinous assault on our player,but its Collum and the SFA,so i suspect not.Dont even know if there was a compliance official in the stand.‍�🤬.

Liviforever wrote:Can't really blame the ref this time though, it was our own doing giving away the corner, then not defending it very well, up till then St Mirren hadn't had a serious shot on our goal, in fact they hadn't even had a corner kick, we should've seen the game out comfortably.

Same with County, missing the penalty, and then not defending properly again cost us there.

That's 4 points that shouldn't have been dropped at home, which would have put us in 4th place. We can still get there, we've a good team and the likes of Nouble is making us even better, we have it in us to get up around the 4th to 6th places.

I wouldn't blame the ref for the goal. Forrest gave away the corner then mishit the clearance. That's fair comment. We were a bit unfortunate mind you that the ref didn't see the handball right before the goal and that the shot was deflected. But some days are just like that.

I do have issue with the blind eye the ref turned to Nouble being manhandled throughout the game and for allowing himself to be hoodwinked by their gamesmanship at every opportunity. Wee things can turn games and a reasonable referee is sometimes the difference between a decent performance providing a win or a decent performance dropping points. The Hibs game was a case in point.

Aye Nouble has to play like he's towing a caravan, always players hanging onto his arm as he's trying to run with the ball. He still manages to pass it to one of our players, sending Devlin through for instance, but ridiculous the ref, Lino, and 4th official all must see it and turn a blind eye cause he's a big fella.

Then big defenders haul Anderson to the ground, or just assault him, and he gets nothing too, absolute no reasoning or consistency with their decisions at times. If they were shite for both teams and gave the same decisions all game you could accept it a bit more.

Funnily enough the opposition fans seem to think that too though, Aberdeen fans thought it all went our way and couldn't believe we felt we got the shitty end of the stick with decisions against them.

I don’t know P&B’s source… but if accurate the below proves we get more harshly treated by the officials

Surely depends on how bad the foul was when counting up bookings against fouls, not really an accurate way of comparing booking against other teams.

We get booked for all sorts of things too, Max for protesting a foul against us got booked but one we just got didn't, Holt for kicking the ball away at a free kick, Montano for the Aberdeen player falling into him when Anderson pushed him away, just from recent games i can think of, none of those were actual fouls.

Yeah I know it’s flawed but it remains clear we get carded more frequently than most of the rest of the division & we can see for ourselves the laughable bookings we get handed out (Nouble’s three yellows 2 of which accumulated to a red for example). We have all seen our players getting booked for their first foul after the opposition have gotten away with the same type of foul or a worse one.

Getting booked for dissent or kicking the ball away is stupidity but I’d have thought would have been discounted in a count of fouls per card but as I say, I don’t know the source or accuracy of the data that was used, however it is still clear evidence of an uneven playing field.

Auld Nick wrote:Yeah I know it’s flawed but it remains clear we get carded more frequently than most of the rest of the division & we can see for ourselves the laughable bookings we get handed out (Nouble’s three yellows 2 of which accumulated to a red for example). We have all seen our players getting booked for their first foul after the opposition have gotten away with the same type of foul or a worse one.

Getting booked for dissent or kicking the ball away is stupidity but I’d have thought would have been discounted in a count of fouls per card but as I say, I don’t know the source or accuracy of the data that was used, however it is still clear evidence of an uneven playing field.

Yep that one has happened to us for years, decades even, absolute nap when the ref has been pretty lenient when the opposition has 4, 5, 6 dodgy tackles on us, and has had a wee word with the opposition players a couple of times telling them next time it's a card, the very first one he'll give is to us. It's as if he's blind to the fact it was the opposition doing all the fouls, and just goes by a lottery system that the next foul gets booked, regardless of which team it is, even when it is our first foul of the game, and not even one you'd consider worthy of a card.