Cove Rangers v Livi

Tickets acquired and looking forward to my first visit to Cove’s wee ground.

A must win if we hold out any hope of qualifying. We should be good enough to win but it will be interesting to see who makes up the starting line up as going by DM’s earlier comments this is likely to be the first game of picking the first choice xi (albeit with the goalie selection forced upon us, not saying Max would have started but I’m not sure who would have - based on what I’ve seen I’d be recalling Schwake )

I reckon it will be

Ivan
Devlin
Fitz
Cancar
Penrice
Pitts
Holt
Shinnie
Nouble
Anderson
Mullin

Looks good to me, lets see what Martindale picks though.

Will be keeping an eye on other groups tables after the game, to see where we stand on a best runner up, hopefully we can shithouse our way through to the next round like we did last season when we thought we'd had it.

Yeh,got to get a win here after Tuesday.Hopefully Mullin and Shinnie get a start.Though with Davie you never know.Agree that some are treating these as friendlies. We'll all be looking at other groups which is unfortunate. Got to put Caley to to the back of our minds and concentrate on Cove.Wont be easy up there as so far on the whole weve struggled to get any sense of momentum going,albeit its still early doors.If we apply ourselves im hopefull we can keep our interest in this competition alive.But at the moment,I wouldn't bank on it.Nothing to lose now,just have a go and again,a clean sheet please.Mon the Lions.

Could end up with Gary Maley in goals, i see he's had to sign up again as our back up keeper, not allowed emergency loans or trialists in this comp, so Maley is signed till January.

I'll be there. Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Never been to Cove's ground.

I think away fans are in standing area. They play on plastic so we should feel at home

I got my ticket online for the stand.

In - Ivan Konovalov, Ayo Obileye, Cristian Montaño & Andrew Shinnie.

Out - Max Stryjek, Phillip Cancar, James Penrice & Jason Holt.

Fucking hell.

Yep,no Anderson Mullin or Holt.FFS.And Brother Collum the Ref.You couldn't make it up.Wer,r doomed..

Troy wrote:Yep,no Anderson Mullin or Holt.FFS.And Brother Collum the Ref.You couldn't make it up.Wer,r doomed..

Yeah he's learned nothing from the Caley defeat, leaving out our 2 biggest goal threats again, starting with weaker players. He's starting Shinnie though, that's all our problems solved, cause that was his only mistake in his team selection.

Hope he proves me wrong and we fire in a few goals first half, but we've a lack of firepower in that starting line up.

Penrice not in the squad, hope he isn't injured and is just being rested because he's coming back from injuriy and an op.

Konovalov, Devlin️, Fitzwater, Obileye, Montaño, Kelly, Pittman, Shinnie, Bahamboula, Goncalves & Nouble.

Neither Goncalves or Nouble look like scoring goals, and Bahamboula & Shinnie dinny look like getting many, so hopefully Pittman gets himself into the box.

1-0 down with no goal threat, who knew.

But he started Shinnie, how did that not solve all our problems, and that we haven't managed to score.

Martindale is really getting on my tits now.

Reckon your tits will have severly dropped after this L/F.Oops wait a minute weve just equalised. Wee uplift there..

Haha and Shinnie equalises, GIRUY Liviforever.

Livingston Football Club

@LiviFCOfficial
88' - NICKY DEVLINNNNNNN!!!!!!

COVE 1-2 LIV | #LFCLive | #PremierSportsCup

Never in doubt.

Livi certainly know how to put our fans through the wringer with an 88th min winner. It's been a grind but we're as good as we needed to be pts wise after the Caley defeat, and will know better where we stand after the midweek Tues & Wed games.

Might need to get a few against Kelty to give us a chance of qualifying as one of the best runners up.

Nicky getting Goncalves outa jail there.Thought it was going to pens tbh.Thank fech hes out for next week. Davie obviously sees something in him in training we don't.Perhaps a couple of weeks in the gym.gym will sort him out.Possible 9 points next weehashasweek against Kelty could see us sneak in the back door again.Coupon buster from Albion Rovers,well done to them.Thought we were out tbh.Not sure if there will be any highlights of this as I wasn't there and no stream available. Hopefully as has been suggested Martindale sends our strongest lineup out from the start.He certainly didn't today.Well done Livi.

Think he's still tinkering about getting players game time to get them fit, and the ones that need it more are starting. More than Goncalves got out of jail with Devlin's winner, Martindale would've gotten pelters too.

You never know Rovers may do us a turn and beat Caley Thistle on Tues, they did well to come back and score 2 against us, narrowly lost against Cove, and just won today, mon Rovers.

Highly unlikely L/F.Was impressed by Caley the other night.Shot ourselves in the foot there.Its theirs for the taking imo.Back door seems our only option of progression. The players will know this.Next week massive for us if we are to stay in this.

They only beat Kelty Hearts 1-0 with an 89th min goal, and Rovers beat Kelty 2-0 today, nobody is unbeatable in this group.
We have to rely on ourselves winning by a few against Kelty and hoping for the best in other groups right enough, but our own group isn't a done deal yet. Tues night's game will be interesting.

Just win next week and take it from there.Off subject,watching the Golf.Amazing.Cmon Rory.

Nice wee day out in Aberdeen.

Surprised as anyone with the starting xi and we were pretty poor in the first half. Having said that we had a couple of chances before & after Goncalves seeing red. After the red card Montano had a fantastic run from our box to theirs before feeding Moyo who fired low across goal… not sure if it was a shot for the back post or a cross for someone to run in to but it was close.

The sending off was fully deserved, he kicked a Cove lad who was no angel himself. The ball wasn’t anywhere near them but he was holding & it looked to me like he forearmed Goncalves in the lower face/neck which he retaliated to with a resounding kick on the shins. Sheer stupidity by him but Collum of course missed the provocation.

Cove were a reasonably decent side & based on this game I think & hope they will stay up.

I’m pretty sure our equaliser was a tap in by Ayo rather than Shinnie. The winner by Devlin was a peach, excellent work by Omeonga to bring the ball forward and play Devlin in on the left, he then turned toward goal and rifled a shot past the keeper.

We did have someone there with a camera so hopefully he was videoing it for the YouTube channel.

Anyone know if Premier sports show any highlights of games when the have a live game? Bonnyrigg v Hibs is live on Sunday.

Probably our poorest first half - at times we looked like we didn’t know what our tactics were - but possibly our best second half in terms of being patient, defending stoutly and managing the game when we got ahead.

Some jokers on FB apparently suggesting that Shinnie & Nouble aren’t good enough and that Goncalves has been a great signing…. Goncalves may yet come good but on the evidence so far he’s not done enough. Shinnie & Nouble on the other hand, while lacking in goal threat potential are both among our better players. Shinnie reads a game very well and has good vision, Nouble taking a player or two on is great to watch and very similar to Fernandez in his ability to keep the ball after looking as if he’s lost it. Also he puts in a power of work on the defensive side of things; just wish he had the finishing prowess to go with his dribbling skills.

Excellent summary Nick.I wasn't there,but by most accounts your spot on.Shinnie doesn't get the recognition from some of our fans that he deserves
He's an experienced pro at this level,and will be integral to our survival this season.If Davie listens to the support in general,next week start Bruce and Josh and build around them ie Nouble wide etc.Its there to win games.Safe trip home my friend and hopefully you enjoyed your day up there..