Snooky

I think both DeLucas and Obileye are much better suited to a back three than a two/four. I’d expect us to stick with that formation to make us more solid as we were a little generous second half of last season!

Lucas is a cracking player - I’ve seen him loads over the years as my boy played up front with him both for Bankton Primary and James Young HS. Definitely has the potential to make it at a high level.

Bigger question is how the ref and Lino missed the foul on Nouble. It was clear as day. I’ll look out for the handball one you mentioned on Sportscene - I can’t remember the incident. The whole VAR thing is a shambles though. We must have wasted more than 10 mins today watching the ref with a finger to his earpiece!

Patronising bullshit. Nouble has more talent in his pinky finger than most of that Hibs team. We have the smallest midfield in the league in Pittman, Holt and Omeonga. The best team won as we have several times against your lot recently both on our pitch and yours….btw we took more points away than home last season and this season so far it’s 3 points away on grass and 3 points at home on plastic and we lost our other game…..at home on the plastic.

Clark was on the park for the warm up yesterday. Seemed to be in trainers rather than boots.

Not enough being made of the tee shirt, shorts and beanie hat combo in July by the way!

As I said above, I was sure that our No7 was Omeonga

I think three of the trialists were Bitsandou, Cancar and Bahamboula. I was sure the number 7, the 4th trialist, was Omeonga but I must have been wrong. He was on the other side of the park from me but that running style was too similar to wee Stephane for it to have been someone else, no?! Max has had an absolute mare today. Three suicidal goals - thanks feck it was a friendly! onwards!

yeah, Sir Nicky of Bishopbriggs got a yellow for celebrating a late winner with the supporters. Crap rule that imo.

Now you’re clearly just taking the piss! Are you seriously complaining that our player, who had to go off the field after your player punched him in the face, didn’t have to stay off to give your team an advantage for a little while longer? That’s the bit about Madden’s performance you are wondering about. Get in the sea!

The helping hand was for not giving Livi a pen when Hart clattered Obileye. Even Packie Bonner thought it was a pen ffs!

Any chance this thread could be used to talk about the match today? Don’t the OF have a separate board for this kind of shit? Unfortunately Celtic seem to have hit some right good form so hard to think we will take anything from the game today. It is a bit of a free hit and our form and confidence are high so I wouldn’t completely rule it out….but I’ll go for 3-1 home win.

He probably should have been to be fair!

Soft or not...if the referee gives the penalty the defender needs to walk or get a yellow at least I’m pretty sure the new rules are that there is no double jeopardy for incidents like this - if the ref gives the pen there can be no red card unless the foul was violent conduct.

Bartley has had a new lease of life at Livi. I think playing week in week out at this stage of his career is key for him and he looks to be loving his role as the senior player in the group. Great signing for us!

Wiki is out of date. The reduction to 8,700 from the c.10,000full capacity was due to the North stand being decommissioned in recent years as it’s not been needed. The toilets, serve rise and other things were repaired and recommissioned in the summer so we could get back to our original number of seats.

It’s hard to tell really. I thought he looked very good and my Killie supporting colleague rated him. We were flying last season so it was hard to break into a team doing so well.

Obviously we only saw him for 7 games, some of which he was just getting match fitness so the following opinion is based on that small sample size. I think he is finished as a number 9. He comes deep all the time and then is too far from goal when attacking. On the rare occasions he played up top he didn’t seem to have the lungs to get back in a hurry and was often miles offside. In my opinion, we looked a far better team when he eventually subbed himself off. He did work hard and showed some good touches so his talent is not all gone but I think the Premiership is beyond him now.

I’m not a huge Duffy fan to be honest but I agree with the general point you make about needing a safe pair of hands now.

I actually liked the approach in the summer. We are a small club with very limited resources who got promoted via the playoffs so we were late lining signings up given we didn’t know what division we would be playing in i spoke with one of the directors before Miller was appointed and he said that they were signing the players that David Hopkin and Martindale had earmarked and, once the manager was appointed, they would take the lead in signings afterwards. We had only a handful of signed players so needed to build some numbers. Also, in any other industry, senior positions are filled and the candidate is expected to work with the other senior people in post - we simply cannot afford to pay off four or five guys if a manager doesn’t work out. We have continuity of the back room staff which will give us a wee chance of staying up - if we don’t, then no problem. We have the smallest budget and many of our players were playing third tier football two seasons ago - it’s a hell of a step up. Perhaps the role should have been described as a Player/Head Coach rather than manager given the above - that is a fair point. I would love to know what has actually happened as it’s far from ideal being without a manager before such a huge game. My biggest disappointment about it all is we have gone from a positive feel-good time for the club to another spell of headlines and negativity (Astro pitch, youth system, odd sacking of manager after 5 mins). So much momentum could be lost which is a big downer for me.

There was quite a gulf in quality but I would agree with you that, particularly in the second half, we relaxed a bit and played more football. Celtic came out of the traps flying and we couldn’t get out of our box for large spells of the first half. 2-0 was a very flattering score to us at HT. I was really happy with the obvious improvement in confidence in our boys in the second half. All through the game, the work rate, commitment and heart was there in spades. Celtic will put 5 or more past a few teams this season - the pace at which they move the ball and close down opposition players was hugely impressive. Rogic was better than I expected (never seen him live before) and I was glad to see Leigh Griffiths get on and play quite well - good reception for him from the Livi faithful too.

I was really surprised Sibbs played tonight as he got a couple of sore ones on Saturday and had an ice pack on his ankle after he limped off. Hopefully just precautionary taking him off sharply tonight as he will be important for us this season.

I think he will do very well for you. I was disappointed he chose to move. Hippo is also a match winner if a little inconsistent. Great win for you boys today!

When was the other clean sheet Mpire? I’m sure we’ve conceded in every other game

I also thought the Airdrie pitch needed watering on Sat. We were really struggling with the weight of the pass and longer balls were holding up on the surface.