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5 hours ago, andylivi1 said:

As many of you will know, we asked for fans and legends to send us in videos wishing the team luck. Thank you to everyone who did.

Keep your eyes peeled for some incredible messages from the legends along the way...

 

"Who is St Johnstone? f**k off St Johnstone" was amazing, oan yerself Manu.

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I think I’d have found today’s defeat oddly more bearable if we’d played our own way rather than bending things to try and nullify Saints. The performance leaves a massive “what if” feeling, I think that’s what will disappoint a lot of fans the most. 

Securing top six and a European spot would cap off a good season but the brutal truth is nobody is going to talk about a game in Moldova in the same breath as a cup final win. Would be scant consolation in comparison IMO. The worry for me is that we haven’t looked remotely like scoring the past four games, and our run-in to complete the pre-split card isn’t too kind. 

Big test of Martindale’s characteristics as a manager to turn this blip around and pick up the squad after such a disappointing day. 

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Martindale got the tactics formation wrong,saying that,when Livi play bad as I've said in the past, i'ts not just a couple of players it's usually 9 or 10.

Devlin,Guthrie,Robbo,Sibbald, can be please enough with their contribution and effort..

When you're full Midfield are anonymous there's something not right,this needs looked into.This has been  more of a regular occurrence since the second half of the St Mirren semi..

There are to many Midfielders with a tendency to drop back too deep Barclay and Holt like the defensive midfield positions,but what I've been seeing lately Mullin and Pittman have been playing more in their own half,even Lawson who was crap today,just won't run forward with the ball.
Robbo is getting no support from the midfield runners,the three forward midfielders in the team,when on the ball or not, should be getting into the box,not hanging back in their own half...
Devlin a full back done more attacking than Mullin,Pittman and Lawson together.
So I'm asking myself,is it just a coincidence that you're 5 midfielders are playing shite at the same time,or are there other things happening that I can't work out..


McCrorie  4/10  Not much to do

Devlin    6/10  Done well,looked interested .

Ambrose   4/10  Not great,at least tried

Guthrie   6/10  Good enough

Serrano   2/10  No strong running with ball. Rarely seen

Lawson    0/10  Lazy,no enthusiasm,absolutely  useless

Holt      0/10  Invisible,no chasing,absolutely useless

Mullin    0/10  1 shot,then done his usual disappeared,absolutely useless

Pittman   0/10  Was he playing ? Done nothing,absolutely useless

Bartley   2/10  Out of position

Robinson  6/10  Played well,no help from a shambles of a midfield

Jet       3/10   Managed to get on the ball,done nothing positive

Sibbald   6/10  Done well,looked interested the time he was on. 

Reilly    1/10  No impact

Forrest   5/10  Tried,Ok for the time on the park

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16 minutes ago, Scrutinizer said:

Martindale got the tactics formation wrong,saying that,when Livi play bad as I've said in the past, i'ts not just a couple of players it's usually 9 or 10.

Devlin,Guthrie,Robbo,Sibbald, can be please enough with their contribution and effort..

When you're full Midfield are anonymous there's something not right,this needs looked into.This has been  more of a regular occurrence since the second half of the St Mirren semi..

There are to many Midfielders with a tendency to drop back too deep Barclay and Holt like the defensive midfield positions,but what I've been seeing lately Mullin and Pittman have been playing more in their own half,even Lawson who was crap today,just won't run forward with the ball.
Robbo is getting no support from the midfield runners,the three forward midfielders in the team,when on the ball or not, should be getting into the box,not hanging back in their own half...
Devlin a full back done more attacking than Mullin,Pittman and Lawson together.
So I'm asking myself,is it just a coincidence that you're 5 midfielders are playing shite at the same time,or are there other things happening that I can't work out..


McCrorie  4/10  Not much to do

Devlin    6/10  Done well,looked interested .

Ambrose   4/10  Not great,at least tried

Guthrie   6/10  Good enough

Serrano   2/10  No strong running with ball. Rarely seen

Lawson    0/10  Lazy,no enthusiasm,absolutely  useless

Holt      0/10  Invisible,no chasing,absolutely useless

Mullin    0/10  1 shot,then done his usual disappeared,absolutely useless

Pittman   0/10  Was he playing ? Done nothing,absolutely useless

Bartley   2/10  Out of position

Robinson  6/10  Played well,no help from a shambles of a midfield

Jet       3/10   Managed to get on the ball,done nothing positive

Sibbald   6/10  Done well,looked interested the time he was on. 

Reilly    1/10  No impact

Forrest   5/10  Tried,Ok for the time on the park

Brutal assessment sir/ madam and unjustified in many areas. If you were in midfield and saw the ball getting lumped over your head for 75 of the 90 mins you are going to have feck all influence on the game.  These players have done the business for us this season and we know what they are capable of. To give 0 marks and call them " absolutely useless" is shit judgement. Who would you have in their place come Wednesday?  We got done over by a better team on the day, it happens get over it or find something else to watch.

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Bartley played out of position but nullified Rooney in open play, did what he was asked to do.

 

All in all it came down to a set piece, we had far more of them in the first half too but couldn't deliver, whether that's because of us or them defending well, maybe both, but they scored from theirs and we didn't from our many. Imo we were the better team first half but went in a goal down. 2nd half Saints started better and almost went 2 up, McCrorie blocking a shot where they cut us open, and comfortably saw out the game defending well.

 

Gutted we didn't put them under any real pressure but there wasn't really much in the game, Saints defence and Rooney from a set piece coming out on top.

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Cup final loss has inspired me to get fired in and try do something new. 

Been diving into some analytics and assessing how Livi actually play and what we can do to change things. So I'm going to drop a little bit of stuff below:

Livi play on average 96 long balls per game, closest to that is St Mirren on 82. League average being 76.75. I wouldn't say it's a surprise that we're a long ball team, playing on average almost an extra 20 long balls per game (19.75). It's been a successful tactic for us given our % of aerial duels won (28.9), which ranks us second. 

St Johnstone rank 1st with 31.3 aerial duels won per game, and in a game like today we needed to avoid pulling them into an aerial battle, as they're one of the few teams that will actually beat us out for them when the ball comes into the box. It also doesn't help (as I'm sure one stat influences the other) that we have the second worst pass accuracy in the league with only 61.6% of passes finding a man. Accies are worse with 60.3% however in comparison play only 81 long balls per game. 

If we want to start doing better in games then we need to be better when we're releasing the ball, again it doesn't help that we're launching balls up to Scott Robinson. I'd imagine if we had someone like Dykes up front then the % is better. It's a bit of a red flag though that the players we're using in this system may not be beneficial. We're crying out for a target man that can win his aerial duels and lay off the ball to wingers essentially and I'd really hope that it's at the top of our recruitment list for the summer.

When it comes today, we were rolling the dice and hoping we can score from a set play. St Johnstone have conceded only 18% of all league goals from set pieces but are the second worst team for conceding from open play with 72% of goals conceded coming from open play situations. As a team, surprisingly, we've scored 58% of our goals from open play, the 4th best in the league based just on numbers. 

We had a team fairly vulnerable at open play situations, and we're a side who scores the second most in the league from open play outside the Old Firm. Instead we decide to focus on set pieces, somewhere where St Johnstone are strong and can play to their strengths in defending the goal. We could see it when Forrest went on, if you run at them then you're going to do better than playing it slow up the park for throws and free kicks. 

Defensively I don't even think we were bad. We managed to limit the crosses and stop St Johnstone exerting their aerial presence. We can't exactly stop the cross with corners though and that's where we've come undone multiple times this season conceding 12 goals from set plays, only Ross County are worse with 14. From what I've seen lately, it's down to us persisting with zonal marking and people losing their markers - something you especially can't do against the best aerial team in the league. 

I genuinely do think if we'd have started with Forrest and Mullin today that we could've won it. Instead we spent half the game worrying about what St Johnstone do and left Mullin isolated yet again to be marked out the game. In the league 41% of our play goes down the right side, usually through Mullin to utilise his deliveries. Teams are wise to this now, they can mark him out the game as they can see where the ball is going. There's zero backup plan on the left for when we get caught out with it. We attempt to move it sometimes, playing through the left 33% of the time but a lot of those rely on Serrano getting forward and leaving us exposed. Even Sibbald out left today would've given us a strong option to switch the play. 

It's never nice to lose a cup final but we absolutely played to St Johnstone's strengths today and let them play in a way they're very comfortable to do. Lawson had a stinker of a game, as did Holt. Neither of them could hold the ball, be composed and just allow the game to grow. We rushed everything and the players retreated into their shell looking quietly scared of the occasion whilst Rooney was pinging shots at McCrorie from 40 yards.

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34 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

Cup final loss has inspired me to get fired in and try do something new. 

Been diving into some analytics and assessing how Livi actually play and what we can do to change things. So I'm going to drop a little bit of stuff below:

Livi play on average 96 long balls per game, closest to that is St Mirren on 82. League average being 76.75. I wouldn't say it's a surprise that we're a long ball team, playing on average almost an extra 20 long balls per game (19.75). It's been a successful tactic for us given our % of aerial duels won (28.9), which ranks us second. 

St Johnstone rank 1st with 31.3 aerial duels won per game, and in a game like today we needed to avoid pulling them into an aerial battle, as they're one of the few teams that will actually beat us out for them when the ball comes into the box. It also doesn't help (as I'm sure one stat influences the other) that we have the second worst pass accuracy in the league with only 61.6% of passes finding a man. Accies are worse with 60.3% however in comparison play only 81 long balls per game. 

If we want to start doing better in games then we need to be better when we're releasing the ball, again it doesn't help that we're launching balls up to Scott Robinson. I'd imagine if we had someone like Dykes up front then the % is better. It's a bit of a red flag though that the players we're using in this system may not be beneficial. We're crying out for a target man that can win his aerial duels and lay off the ball to wingers essentially and I'd really hope that it's at the top of our recruitment list for the summer.

When it comes today, we were rolling the dice and hoping we can score from a set play. St Johnstone have conceded only 18% of all league goals from set pieces but are the second worst team for conceding from open play with 72% of goals conceded coming from open play situations. As a team, surprisingly, we've scored 58% of our goals from open play, the 4th best in the league based just on numbers. 

We had a team fairly vulnerable at open play situations, and we're a side who scores the second most in the league from open play outside the Old Firm. Instead we decide to focus on set pieces, somewhere where St Johnstone are strong and can play to their strengths in defending the goal. We could see it when Forrest went on, if you run at them then you're going to do better than playing it slow up the park for throws and free kicks. 

Defensively I don't even think we were bad. We managed to limit the crosses and stop St Johnstone exerting their aerial presence. We can't exactly stop the cross with corners though and that's where we've come undone multiple times this season conceding 12 goals from set plays, only Ross County are worse with 14. From what I've seen lately, it's down to us persisting with zonal marking and people losing their markers - something you especially can't do against the best aerial team in the league. 

I genuinely do think if we'd have started with Forrest and Mullin today that we could've won it. Instead we spent half the game worrying about what St Johnstone do and left Mullin isolated yet again to be marked out the game. In the league 41% of our play goes down the right side, usually through Mullin to utilise his deliveries. Teams are wise to this now, they can mark him out the game as they can see where the ball is going. There's zero backup plan on the left for when we get caught out with it. We attempt to move it sometimes, playing through the left 33% of the time but a lot of those rely on Serrano getting forward and leaving us exposed. Even Sibbald out left today would've given us a strong option to switch the play. 

It's never nice to lose a cup final but we absolutely played to St Johnstone's strengths today and let them play in a way they're very comfortable to do. Lawson had a stinker of a game, as did Holt. Neither of them could hold the ball, be composed and just allow the game to grow. We rushed everything and the players retreated into their shell looking quietly scared of the occasion whilst Rooney was pinging shots at McCrorie from 40 yards.

So basically your management team got it wrong and were outclassed by the Saints management team.

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2 hours ago, Monkey socks said:

Brutal assessment sir/ madam and unjustified in many areas. If you were in midfield and saw the ball getting lumped over your head for 75 of the 90 mins you are going to have feck all influence on the game.  These players have done the business for us this season and we know what they are capable of. To give 0 marks and call them " absolutely useless" is shit judgement. Who would you have in their place come Wednesday?  We got done over by a better team on the day, it happens get over it or find something else to watch.

This is a cup Final we're talking about here,the full midfield were non existent I'm not talking about what they've done all season,Mullin,Pittman,Lawson,and Holt done nothing,on the occasions they got the ball,they panicked,made poor passes, or just lumped it up in the air anywhere,their ball control was not good enough,they couldn't  even keep the ball on the deck, They just didn't have the know how to get bye the big Saints defenders who were defending near the centre circle at times. Serano never made any of his usual wing runs 
Any ball that went up in the air Saints won with ease

Poor Robbo was left to run about all over the front line himself,so yeh I blame the midfield.You say the ball was getting lumped over their head,if so who's fault was that, ? what I saw was poor first touch control. The Saints defenders had them in their pockets.
The worst players on the park Holt,Mullin,Pittman,Lawson,Serano,are the ones you usually rely on for attacking play, were invisible ...

Remember not even one shot at goal in the 2nd half, couldn't string three successful  passes together most of the game ,couldn't keep the ball on the deck...

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1 hour ago, Templar Saint said:

So basically your management team got it wrong and were outclassed by the Saints management team.

Yep absolutely, no complaints there at all. St Johnstone played to their strengths and easily dealt with the challenges in front of them

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32 minutes ago, Scrutinizer said:

This is a cup Final we're talking about here,the full midfield were non existent I'm not talking about what they've done all season,Mullin,Pittman,Lawson,and Holt done nothing,on the occasions they got the ball,they panicked,made poor passes, or just lumped it up in the air anywhere,their ball control was not good enough,they couldn't  even keep the ball on the deck, They just didn't have the know how to get bye the big Saints defenders who were defending near the centre circle at times. Serano never made any of his usual wing runs
Any ball that went up in the air Saints won with ease

Poor Robbo was left to run about all over the front line himself,so yeh I blame the midfield.You say the ball was getting lumped over their head,if so who's fault was that, ? what I saw was poor first touch control. The Saints defenders had them in their pockets.
The worst players on the park Holt,Mullin,Pittman,Lawson,Serano,are the ones you usually rely on for attacking play, were invisible ...

Remember not even one shot at goal in the 2nd half, couldn't string three successful  passes together most of the game ,couldn't keep the ball on the deck...

Ok , see I'm not getting anywhere here. If they were ( are ) so bad , who should we play in their place on Wed If they are deserving of a 0 out of 10 on your assessment  ? Seem prime candidates to be dropped. 

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1 hour ago, Monkey socks said:

Ok , see I'm not getting anywhere here. If they were ( are ) so bad , who should we play in their place on Wed If they are deserving of a 0 out of 10 on your assessment  ? Seem prime candidates to be dropped. 

My worry is that only one of Bartley or Holt should play. Sibbald or Forrest to come in and replace Holt/Bartley and Lawson for me. 

We need to find an option that isn't firing balls up to someone who isn't a target man. Robbo is fine up front however we need to spread the play to the wings and get fast, low crosses in for him to get on the end of. 

We get up the park and then delay the cross, pass the ball into the middle of the park just outside the box and wait for an opening which isn't working either. We're far too reliant on the right side of play and Mullin in general.

 

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I thought Livi got it bang on for the first half.an hour, Rooney only got behind them once or twice from open play and we didn't get into the sort of possession rhythm we've seen for a few months with this system.

The goal was huge in terms of dynamic of the game but also huge mentally. We came out 2nd half and throttled Livi and got into a bit of the passing that our system often offers us.

If we hadn't scored when we did Melamed would surely have been introduced and a shakeup of the formation would have come.

Davidson got it bang on again. I had my reservations early on in the season but he has now built the system into the mindset of the players and it is paying dividends, clearly, in terms of results since December.

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