Livingston - all the threads merged

[ATLIS]

Starting to get a bit worried about the lack of news coming out the club regarding contracts. Surely we should be doing all we can to keep Halkett etc.. 

A fair bit of the players can sign a PCA in January and there won't be a shortage of clubs looking at them given our start so far. A bit of communication would be great but I'm sure a decent amount of the players will be looking to move on which is worrying given we might be looking at a big job of replacing certain players.

Edited December 21, 2017 by ATLIS

[HoBNob]

Rumours* that you're struggling to pay wages due to the lack of home games, could that be why you're not currently giving out contracts?

 

 

 

*It is in the Daily Star though.

[ATLIS]

4 hours ago, Grant228 said:

Rumours* that you're struggling to pay wages due to the lack of home games, could that be why you're not currently giving out contracts?

 

 

 

*It is in the Daily Star though.

Doubt that, the home game's will still come so it's not as if the money won't ever come into the club

A year and a half ago I would've believed it but trust Ward to keep us stable and in a good place financially 

[Livilion28]

There was a number of managers at the game the other night , I could imagine a few were looking at our players. Halkett byrne pittman Mullin my guess

[andylivi1]

5 hours ago, Grant228 said:

Rumours* that you're struggling to pay wages due to the lack of home games, could that be why you're not currently giving out contracts?

 

 

 

*It is in the Daily Star though.

Nah, we haven’t a lot of money but we aren’t struggling to pay wages. 

The money we made from Mullen 25k I believe and the 100k from the league cup run has almost certainly helped with cash flow at the Club, a high finish this season too would be a welcome boost. 

This sort of rumour is unhelpful but understandable given our past record, but under the stewardship of John Ward who I’ve met on a few occasions now I’m more confident than ever that the right guy is in charge and has long term plans for the Club. 

Edited December 21, 2017 by andylivi1

[ATLIS]

8 minutes ago, andylivi1 said:

Nah, we haven’t a lot of money but we aren’t struggling to pay wages. 

The money we made from Mullen 25k I believe and the 100k from the league cup run has almost certainly helped with cash flow at the Club, a high finish this season too would be a welcome boost. 

This sort of rumour is unhelpful but understandable given our past record, but under the stewardship of John Ward who I’ve met on a few occasions now I’m more confident than ever that the right guy is in charge and has long term plans for the Club. 

I wonder what the long term plan is. To be challenging playoffs for Premier League or just to be safe in the Championship?

[andylivi1]

10 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

I wonder what the long term plan is. To be challenging playoffs for Premier League or just to be safe in the Championship?

I think the long term goal is to make the Football club financially stable and become a real community hub again, from what I understand the council seem to be hindering that a little bit but the club are working hard behind the scenes. 

Obviously in the future on the pitch premiership football would be a target but at the moment stability and a strong footing off it is the goal. 

[Cptn Hooch]

23 minutes ago, andylivi1 said:

I think the long term goal is to make the Football club financially stable and become a real community hub again, from what I understand the council seem to be hindering that a little bit but the club are working hard behind the scenes. 

Obviously in the future on the pitch premiership football would be a target but at the moment stability and a strong footing off it is the goal. 

What's the deal with the council? How are they hindering that? On your last point I'm sure every Livi fan would agree that's exactly what we want to see. As much as I'd love to see us winning titles etc, I'd much rather we made sure there was a football team for us to support in the long term

[andylivi1]

21 minutes ago, Cptn Hooch said:

What's the deal with the council? How are they hindering that? On your last point I'm sure every Livi fan would agree that's exactly what we want to see. As much as I'd love to see us winning titles etc, I'd much rather we made sure there was a football team for us to support in the long term

Rumours that they want to increase the rent which is already an astronomic amount which will obviously effect the Club finacially, when u think about it what other landlord would get away with renting out a place but not maintaining it ? We have to maintain the ground ourselves which comes at a cost too. 

I also heard it was like jumping through hoops trying to discuss putting in a plastic pitch as we need permission from the council, I believe that if we became a community sporting facility with plastic pitch etc we would be entitled to a lower rent rate which obviously the council don’t want to happen. 

All just rumours ofcourse. 

[Afro]

Given the Council have probably bent over backwards for us during our entire existence all in all, it would take some brass neck to get tore in about them. That said, there's no doubt that the current iteration of chiefs at WLC aren't exactly a friend of the football club. Can I blame them? Not really, given how much of basket case we have been financially. They're probably looking to maximise their return without putting much in at all (maintenance, 4G pitch discussions etc). Can't blame them given they're using public money. The real danger would be if we end up in some crazy New Broomfield/Broadwood-esque scenario, and we've got nowhere to go but slave out an existence at a white elephant of a stadium.

The defining long-term goal of the club, alongside financial stability, should be a move away from Almondvale to a stadium which we own. I'd argue vehemently that one cannot be achieved without the other, but given we're run internally as a part-time club with a handful of staff and volunteers, I won't hold my breath.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Afro

[Cptn Hooch]

16 minutes ago, Afro said:

Given the Council have probably bent over backwards for us during our entire existence all in all, it would take some brass neck to get tore in about them. That said, there's no doubt that the current iteration of chiefs at WLC aren't exactly a friend of the football club. Can I blame them? Not really, given how much of basket case we have been financially. They're probably looking to maximise their return without putting much in at all (maintenance, 4G pitch discussions etc). Can't blame them given they're using public money. The real danger would be if we end up in some crazy New Broomfield/Broadwood-esque scenario, and we've got nowhere to go but slave out an existence at a white elephant of a stadium.

The defining long-term goal of the club, alongside financial stability, should be a move away from Almondvale to a stadium which we own. I'd argue vehemently that one cannot be achieved without the other, but given we're run internally as a part-time club with a handful of staff and volunteers, I won't hold my breath.

I agree with what you're saying regarding the council's reluctance to help the club but isn't there an agreement that the ground the stadium is on needs to be used for sporting purposes? Surely crippling the club financially puts the potential of a professional football team occupying the stadium at risk. It seems daft that a landlord would price their tenant out of the game

[Cptn Hooch]

Rumour has is that we're on the verge of bringing in Nathan Austin from Falkirk. Not sure of the details, but someone on the Falkirk topic has said it's in the papers this morning. He's a striker who seems to have a decent scoring record.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Austin

[andylivi1]

34 minutes ago, Cptn Hooch said:

Rumour has is that we're on the verge of bringing in Nathan Austin from Falkirk. Not sure of the details, but someone on the Falkirk topic has said it's in the papers this morning. He's a striker who seems to have a decent scoring record.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Austin

I think if this was going to be the case it wouldn’t surprise me to see someone going the other way...I heard a small rumour that Scott Pittman was being lined up by Falkirk, so that would make sense.

Personally I’d rather keep Pittman. 

Before people jump on it, I have to make clear it’s just a rumour I heard.

[EdinburghLivi]

Austin is clearly a very good player on his game. Hopefully a move can give him the confidence boost needed to be that player again.

[LIVIFOREVER]

I liked the look of Austin when we played Falkirk in our cup game earlier in the season, did notice he had a tendency to look for a foul though, so would be a good replacement for Mullen.

 

Hope that Pittman rumour is false, if we have any aspirations of a top four finish this season we need to stop punting our best players.

[andylivi1]

1 hour ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

I liked the look of Austin when we played Falkirk in our cup game earlier in the season, did notice he had a tendency to look for a foul though, so would be a good replacement for Mullen.

 

Hope that Pittman rumour is false, if we have any aspirations of a top four finish this season we need to stop punting our best players.

Tbf we don’t know if Pittman is similar to Danny Mullen that he doesn’t want to commit to a new contract and we want to get something or someone for him rather than losing him for nothing in the summer ? 

I get what you are saying, it would be disappointing to lose someone like Pittman but in Midfield we are pretty strong and I’d imagine Hoppy would be looking to bring someone in to cover Pitts if the rumour is indeed true. 

On the possible signing of Austin, it wasn’t long ago he was a wanted man in Scottish football, yes he’s struggled this season but the whole of the Falkirk side has struggled, I’ve liked the look of him everytime he’s came up against us and I recon Hoppy would really get him playing. 

Only time will tell though. 

[LiviLion]

Hopefully Austin not being great this season is down to the shite players he's surrounded by and he could find his form with us. 

The Pittman rumour, if true, is disappointing but not very surprising. Worrying that it might be the start of this squad moving on. 

I'll stay optimistic; we'll wake up on Christmas morning to find out that Santa Hopkin has given contract extensions all round. 

[orco]

IMO losing Pittman would be a major blow. He is the engine in our midfield and our most dependable player. If he went I'd rather it wasn't yet again to one of our rivals. 

[andylivi1]

Pittman is a great player, I am slightly surprised that Falkirk are interested though because he is a very similar midfielder to what they have now, breaks up the play well, starts things off and doesn’t give the ball away very often but doesn’t get forward as much as he should, perhaps that’s down to the style of play we play right enough but strikes me as a very similar player to what Falkirk already have. 

[LIVIFOREVER]

23 minutes ago, andylivi1 said:

Tbf we don’t know if Pittman is similar to Danny Mullen that he doesn’t want to commit to a new contract and we want to get something or someone for him rather than losing him for nothing in the summer ? 

I get what you are saying, it would be disappointing to lose someone like Pittman but in Midfield we are pretty strong and I’d imagine Hoppy would be looking to bring someone in to cover Pitts if the rumour is indeed true. 

On the possible signing of Austin, it wasn’t long ago he was a wanted man in Scottish football, yes he’s struggled this season but the whole of the Falkirk side has struggled, I’ve liked the look of him everytime he’s came up against us and I recon Hoppy would really get him playing. 

Only time will tell though. 

This is getting ridiculous now though, if we're going to keep doing this then our season is knackered and we could end up being in serious trouble on the pitch, and go into freefall losing game after game. There is fine lines in games and we aren't that good we can afford to lose our best players and not suffer for it. We built a team for this season, you have to strike a balance between getting a few thousand pounds for a player and accept them moving on for nothing but getting you a higher league place and more prize money, more chance of building our fan base with a successful team on the pitch, and general feel good factor around the place, start going down the route of losing all our best players half way through the season and it isn't going to be much fun going to Livi games.