I was reading an interview with Roberto Landi this morning in which he outlines his vision for Livi. In it, he says:



Now, judging by the performance of the Italian national team at the European Championships, that would would suggest to me that Livi fans should prepare themselves for some of the most boring, defensive football ever known to man. I'm quite interested to know what they think of this having spent a season watching the kind of attacking football espoused by Mark Proctor.

Landi also goes on to say:



Although you want your manager to instill confidence in your team, I think a healthy dose of realism is required, too, especially when you currently have five senior players on your books. If I were the Livi manager, I'd be talking about consolidation, and how we would be looking to push on the following season.

I can't help think, despite them having witnessed two relatively poor seasons, that the Livi fans are in for a major disappointment.

I daresay that it is all music to your ears. I also think that as we all know, speculation of this sort is somewhat futile at this stage of what is only just pre-season. We will only know if Livi are to employ a cattenacio style of football once we watch them. If it is and it's boring then yes, I will be dissapointed. This may be tempered by league success! Mind you, I witnessed some shit games last season during our flair laden period.

As for his bold predictions? Yep, they are bold. I'll take anything above Partick and beyond the play offs

Not particularly. I'm not overly concerned with Livi, but recent developments have proved interesting, hence why I've commented on them.

the italians did play pretty interesting football against Spain the other night...at least, i thought.

"Edinburgh/Carstairs"

uh huh

I think of any team in this division, Livi are the only one who you couldn't predict where they will end up in April 09. The rest you could predict their finish within 2 places. Us? Impossible. It's kind of exciting but a little bit like your first roller coaster ride. You know it's going to be up and down but are you actually going to enjoy it?

I think though that it's unfair to suggest that we are set to be the league's spoilers. Because he is Italian, he will have Livi playing like the Italian national team? (I'd take that )

So Landi says " we will play with a defensive line". Does that actually sound strange to you? Any other teams planning to play without defensive lines? Italian tactics? It's a bit vague for assumption making.

I'm not sure what Livingston were playing at in the first two games against us this season but I wouldn't describe it as a "defensive" line. It generally involved your back four standing static somewhere near the halfway line.

Livi will be interesting but I think they'll finish similarly to last season. A few wins over the big boys, but lucky to avoid the play off spots.

Vague? Yes. Sweeping generalisation based on stereoypes? Yes. But it's all we've got to go on at the moment and is designed to stimulate debate, which uit hopefully will.

If they go for the boring football, and it gets them results, then they'll be right to do so.

If they go for the boring football, and it gets them in trouble, I'd imagine the fans would be even more pissed off than they would be if they were playing good football and not getting results every week.

It's a risky thing to do if that is what is intended.

No doubt about it we were a swasbuckling team in attack last year which was good to watch when it came off but in many more games we handed wins to the opposition through god awful defending. And at the end of the day we were still looking at relegation almost to the end of the campaign.

If the new management have decided to shore up our defence then I can live with that. If I watch a game as a neutral I come away less than pleased if one team has sat back and hit on the break. If I watch Livi or Scotland and they consistently win by this method I am delighted.

I'd like the best of both worlds but I will accept effectiveness in whatever form it comes.

your point is, caller?

I think he's inferring it's a bit mad to suggest the Italians played 'interesting' football.

Mama Mia! What a mistake-a to make-a!

The problem with starting out like that is, if your pants you've got nowhere to go.

Can hardly consolidate by playing hard to beat, when you're already playing that way.

But - I wouldn't read too much into these pre-season comments. New managers will come in and probably give more than a few interviews - more often than not they are just spouting p1sh to fill up the silences.

Being half Italian i get to watch a lot of Serie A & Serie B football, and it isn't as bad as what people make it out to be. It isn't just boring defensive football that never pushes forward, because statistics would show you Serie A & below have a lot of goals scored.

What they will be trying to do is implement how to hold the ball, which is something that Italians do very well. If the tactics are implemented into Livi team it will be interesting to see if they are actually good enough to do it, are they a good enough to work the ball around & hold possession?

You just have to look at what De Canio had done at QPR in the CC Championship, QPR were heading no where when he took over. But after a few weeks of his tactics and playing the Italian brand of football, they were more organised & better at controlling play. They were able to improve there position so much, that they crawled out of the drop zone because of De Canio.

So Livi fans don't think it's all doom & gloom.

Rangers played all season defensively. Rightly or wrongly they were slated for it. Italy play defensively, but that's ok? No difference in my book. They should be ashamed to call themselves world champs.

I can't say that I would be happy with a purely defensive formation. The best sight in football is a player taking on his man and beating him. Whipping a cross in and the striker hitting the back of the net. However if that was my only criteria for watching 1st Division games, I wouldn't be enjoying rich pickings now would I. I would hope that Landi's experience, for what it is, will bring new aspects of organisation to players unused to it. Allied with a few tasty loan stars we will see a new style of Cattenacio; "Liviacio"

Yet scored the same as Celtic and lost the league on goals conceded. Some defensive display there.

Did they? I thought they lost on points.

What a joke!

See all this 'the right way to play football'; 'good football'; 'A good philosophy' shite. I'm sick & tired of hearing it. A team will play however they want to and shouldn't be looked down noses at because of that choice. Results matter, the spectacle which accompanies them does not. Apparently that's too hard for some to appreciate?

I WANT TO HAVE MY CAKE AND FUCKING EAT IT!

Apparently, that's too hard for some to appreciate.

As long as it doesn't contain nuts mind.

(For the express purposes of banter, disregard my post people).

You may continue Niz.

Fine, if it had gone to points, see the penultimate league table.

I just think we're in for counter-attacking football which isn't necessarily a bad thing at all. In fact, a lot of teams in this division do it now anyway. Some of the goals we conceded last season were embarassing from a defensive point so really tightening up at the back is probably better than going out all guns blazing as we did last season. Fair enough, it may not be as exciting but if we pick up more points I think most people will be more satisfied by the end of the season.

I'm guessing this is the interview from The Sun?

The guys clearly on LSD.

I'm still disappointed that Proc didn't get a chance of a second term but we have to move on now.

If we are made hard to beat by conceding less then that in itself will put us up the league a bit.

If Landi includes a couple of flair players to make things happen further up the field then we could still play attractive football.

I would like to see us score more from corners and free kicks. I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of goals from dead ball situations over the last few years.

I think the way things are shaping up we won't be signing too many players on long contracts, instead we will be getting young SPL players on loan to give them meaningful games.

Time will tell if that's a successful policy.

interesting doesn't mean good, it was different to how they usually play therefor "interesting"...plus i only saw the last 30 mins of the 90 and they seemed to be in Spain's box quite a bit

Here was me thinking it was more to do with 3 billionaires taking over and pumping money into the club.

Brilliant. Paid back your debt yet?