Livingston - all the threads merged

[andylivi1]

28 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

That was just about as depressingly painful a listen as watching us lose the cup final. 

 We always try to put a positive spin on things but we actually couldn’t this time 

[Cptn Hooch]

Would have put this in the match thread but it appears to have been hijacked by a Motherwell fan with a hard on for Rangers and a selection of others who take offence to this fact.

 

Anyway...

 

Much improved performance tonight. Nobody let themselves down! Robbo clearly not fit enough though which is a worry as we're toiling for goals at the moment. The heartbreaking part isn't losing tonight...its the fact that, had we played half as well on Sunday we'd have won the cup. Need to keep the performance levels up in the rest of our games and push for 4th/5th. 

Felt maybe Jet would have made an impact in that game tonight, using his strength with the ball on the deck against their defence so I was surprised to see Tiffoney come on. He did well though, made some great runs and got us up the park.

[Afro]

29 minutes ago, Cptn Hooch said:

Would have put this in the match thread but it appears to have been hijacked by a Motherwell fan with a hard on for Rangers and a selection of others who take offence to this fact.

 

Anyway...

 

Much improved performance tonight. Nobody let themselves down! Robbo clearly not fit enough though which is a worry as we're toiling for goals at the moment. The heartbreaking part isn't losing tonight...its the fact that, had we played half as well on Sunday we'd have won the cup. Need to keep the performance levels up in the rest of our games and push for 4th/5th. 

Felt maybe Jet would have made an impact in that game tonight, using his strength with the ball on the deck against their defence so I was surprised to see Tiffoney come on. He did well though, made some great runs and got us up the park.

Agreed that there was a lot more zip about us tonight, but not sure if that’d have been enough on Sunday. We still didn’t offer much offensively, Reilly going off injured and Robinson struggling for fitness are concerns. Tiffoney coming in out the cold was a welcome surprise and he certainly put himself about. 

A big striker in the mould of Dykes in this team would be lethal. The fact we’ve made do with a litany of glorified attacking midfielders for the vast majority of the season is a testament to how much we’ve overachieved I think. 

[ATLIS]

Might go against the grain here but I didn't see much to be positive about. We defender well, but that's been a constant since about September or so. Yet again we created absolutely nothing of note and persist with long balls up to hopeless strikers (in terms of winning the ball) and hope the second ball falls for us. It's an utterly tragic way to play, and it isn't just this game, we do it every week. I don't mind long balls if someone is going to win them but we have absolutely no plan b. It's lump it up or lump it up. 

So many players now showing they don't have what it takes at this level:

JET
Lawson
Tiffoney

Just three examples of players nowhere near the required ability. Questions surely need to be asked of Forrest and why he isn't starting given the expectations around him when he signed

 

 

[LIVIFOREVER]

Thought Lawson played well when he came on, won a lot of balls in midfield.

 

Positive is we defended set pieces well, that hasn't always been the case, esp since Brown left.

For some reason we've gone off the boil with our own set pieces, that has let us down in our last 3 games. Disappointed with Pitts in his tame effort in the first half, got onto a great chance to rocket it into the net but put it wide. Left Morelos in the box for their goal too.

A few shite yellow card awards by Beaton, and giving a corner when it was an offside call etc, just glad he didn't give them their dodgy pen claim, think he had a wee brain fart moment and decided to book him for diving instead, which shocked Slippy as well, that and their offside goal usually gets given when we play them.

 

Anyway, better defensive performance, but we need to start scoring goals too, if we want to hold onto 5th place.

[Troy.1995]

9 hours ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Thought Lawson played well when he came on, won a lot of balls in midfield.

 

Positive is we defended set pieces well, that hasn't always been the case, esp since Brown left.

For some reason we've gone off the boil with our own set pieces, that has let us down in our last 3 games. Disappointed with Pitts in his tame effort in the first half, got onto a great chance to rocket it into the net but put it wide. Left Morelos in the box for their goal too.

A few shite yellow card awards by Beaton, and giving a corner when it was an offside call etc, just glad he didn't give them their dodgy pen claim, think he had a wee brain fart moment and decided to book him for diving instead, which shocked Slippy as well, that and their offside goal usually gets given when we play them.

 

Anyway, better defensive performance, but we need to start scoring goals too, if we want to hold onto 5th place.

Yeh,would agree about Lawson L/F.Thought he did well when he came on.Was worried we might have gone down to ten men with all the cards Beaton was dishing out.And i also worry about our offensive options. We desperatetly need one of our strikers to hit form if we are gonna seriously challenge after the split, assuming that top six is secured of course.Other teams around us could help that scenario granted.

On 03/02/2021 at 09:06, Durnford said:

Am getting a trifle worried about the number of injuries we're picking up in our central defence.

So far we have the following players out.

• Guthrie
• Lithgow
• Fitzwater
• Brown (returned to Cardiff)

This kind of leaves us at the bare bones defensively although the schedule does ease to one game a week after Saturday week.

 

[Durnford]

9 hours ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Thought Lawson played well when he came on, won a lot of balls in midfield.

 

Positive is we defended set pieces well, that hasn't always been the case, esp since Brown left.

For some reason we've gone off the boil with our own set pieces, that has let us down in our last 3 games. Disappointed with Pitts in his tame effort in the first half, got onto a great chance to rocket it into the net but put it wide. Left Morelos in the box for their goal too.

A few shite yellow card awards by Beaton, and giving a corner when it was an offside call etc, just glad he didn't give them their dodgy pen claim, think he had a wee brain fart moment and decided to book him for diving instead, which shocked Slippy as well, that and their offside goal usually gets given when we play them.

 

Anyway, better defensive performance, but we need to start scoring goals too, if we want to hold onto 5th place.

 

I thought Lawson was excellent when he came on - night and day from the guy who turned up on Sunday. Time and again he blunted their attack down our right battling and winning the ball time and again. His passing was far better as well. I really don't understand the jekyll and hyde performances; some games he's fantastic and others pretty anonymous. 

The thing that really let us down though was our attacking strategy (if you can call jumping the ball up to a short lone guy; a strategy).

Limiting what is currently the best form side in the country to one goal isn't much good if you cant add something at the other end. Attacking down the left seemed to be getting some results but we never seemed to capitalise on it.

As for the yellow cards I cant comment on the time wasting one as Sky was too busy showing close ups of Gerard et al but the three we got for shirt tugging etc. were totally pointless. All three happened in the midfield; two if which when there were plenty of others around. We need to stop picking up senseless yellows; Guthrie in particular ended up walking a metaphorical tightrope for the remaining 80+ minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

[thruthenight]

2 hours ago, Durnford said:

 

I thought Lawson was excellent when he came on - night and day from the guy who turned up on Sunday. Time and again he blunted their attack down our right battling and winning the ball time and again. His passing was far better as well. I really don't understand the jekyll and hyde performances; some games he's fantastic and others pretty anonymous. 

The thing that really let us down though was our attacking strategy (if you can call jumping the ball up to a short lone guy; a strategy).

Limiting what is currently the best form side in the country to one goal isn't much good if you cant add something at the other end. Attacking down the left seemed to be getting some results but we never seemed to capitalise on it.

As for the yellow cards I cant comment on the time wasting one as Sky was too busy showing close ups of Gerard et al but the three we got for shirt tugging etc. were totally pointless. All three happened in the midfield; two if which when there were plenty of others around. We need to stop picking up senseless yellows; Guthrie in particular ended up walking a metaphorical tightrope for the remaining 80+ minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

It is though? We might not have picked up a point last night, but we're clearly doing something right. Rangers have scored in every single game they've played this season (including Europe) other than Almondvale earlier in the season, and we were 5 minutes away from keeping them out twice. Unfortunately we just didn't manage to get there, but we've demonstrated that our defensive structure is excellent for the resources we have.

Completely agree with you about Lawson. I really like him as a player, but he'll be MOTM one week and then useless the next.

[thruthenight]

On 28/02/2021 at 19:41, ATLIS said:

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.

Tbf it was last summer too. We brought in Lokotsch, Poplatnik, Reilly, JET and Stokes to try and fill that gap, and our now clearly #1 striker is Scott Robinson. Dykes is not an easy man to replace.

[LIVIFOREVER]

Thought the one Guthrie got was ridiculous, so early on too, then Beaton ignored a Sevco player fouling us, played advantage then carried on as if the foul hadn't happened once the ball had gone out of play, where was his cards then. A few other Sevco players escaped the cards he so readily dished out to ours. By the rules Morelos should've been sent off with his 2nd booking for his goal celebrations too, again Beaton bottled it. Seems he picks and chooses when to apply the rules of the game. I'm all for Refs using common sense BTW, but they rarely do, and he can't pick and choose when he's going to do so, consistency is what fans want.

 

Still can't believe he didn't give them the penalty, and offside goal. Had to laugh at the sportscene highlights saying Sevco will feel justice has been done when they scored, referring to them not getting the pen, how many times when we've played them, both at Ibrox and Livi, have the c***s got away with bookings and offside decisions. Morelos scored a goal last season that was a yard offside when he ran through on goal, then they got their equaliser at Ibrox last season when a player was offside from their free kick. Helander getting away with a red card foul on Dykes, got away with another in a two footed challenge at Ibrox in the same game as the 3-1 defeat, and Devlin's goal chopped off for being stronger than Halliday winning the ball, justice was done pish.

 

Devlin is fantastic at hitting the bye line, some burst of pace on him, see if he could just cross a decent ball into the box he'd be some player.

[LIVIFOREVER]

7 minutes ago, thruthenight said:

Tbf it was last summer too. We brought in Lokotsch, Poplatnik, Reilly, JET and Stokes to try and fill that gap, and our now clearly #1 striker is Scott Robinson. Dykes is not an easy man to replace.

Thought Serrano was doing a good job getting onto all the headers from Stryjek kicking the ball down our wing, we obv had a game plan and for most part it worked. If only our set pieces got back to what they were in our purple patch, hasn't been much in our last few defeats that a set piece goal couldn't have gotten us something, Even in the cup final.

[EdinburghLivi]

Goalkeepers
1. Robby McCrorie - 2021 (loan)
30. Brian Schwake - 2023
32. Max Stryjek - 2023
40. Gary Maley - 2021

Defenders
2. Nicky Devlin - 2022
4. Alan Lithgow - 2021
5. Jack Fitzwater - 2023
12. Julien Serrano - 2021 (loan)
21. Jack McMillan - 2022
23. Jackson Longridge - 2023
25. Efe Ambrose - 2021
27. Jon Guthrie - 2022
29. Aaron Taylor-Sinclair - 2021

Midfielders
6. Marvin Bartley - 2022
7. Keaghan Jacobs - 2022
8. Scott Pittman - 2023
10. Craig Sibbald - 2022
18. Jason Holt - 2023
28. Djibril Diani - 2021 (loan with option to buy)
33. Steve Lawson - 2021

Forwards
9. Jay Emmanuel-Thomas - 2021 (1 year extension option)
11. Alan Forrest - 2022
14. Josh Mullin - 2023
15. Matej Poplatnik - 2022 (1 year extension option)
17. Scott Robinson - 2021
20. Gavin Reilly - 2022
37. Jaze Kabia - 2023

In
Ciaron Brown - Cardiff City (Loan)
Djibril Diani - Grasshopper Club Zurich (Loan)
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas - PTT Rayong
Jack Fitzwater - West Bromich Albion
Alan Forrest - Ayr United
Jason Holt - Rangers
Jaze Kabia - Shelbourne
Salim Kouider-Aissa - Queen's Park
Jackson Longridge - Bradford City
Lars Lokotsch - SV Rodinghausen
Robby McCrorie - Rangers (Loan)
Josh Mullin - Ross County
Matej Poplatnik - Kerala Blasters
Gavin Reilly - Carlisle United
Julien Serrano - AS Monaco (Loan)
Anthony Stokes - Persepolis
Max Stryjek - Eastleigh

Out
Ciaron Brown - Cardiff City (Loan return)
Robbie Crawford - Motherwell
Raffaele De Vita - Edinburgh City (Loan) - Contract Expiry 2021
Lyndon Dykes - QPR
Chris Erskine - East Kilbride
Jack Hamilton - Arbroath (Loan) - Contract Expiry 2022
Craig Henderson - East Stirlingshire
Salim Kouider-Aissa - Queen's Park (Loan) - Contract Expiry 2022 (1 year extension option)
Ricki Lamie - Motherwell
Steven Lawless - Burton Albion
Lars Lokotsch - FSV Zwickau
Dolly Menga
Hakeem Odoffin - Hamilton Academical
Cece Pepe
Carlo Pignatiello - Arbroath (Loan) - Contract Expiry 2021 (?)
Ryan Schofield - Huddersfield (Loan Return)
Aymen Souda - FC Sete 34
Ross Stewart - Hearts (Loan) - Contract Expiry 2021
Anthony Stokes
Scott Tiffoney - Partick Thistle (Loan) - Contract Expiry 2021 (?)
 

Worth an update on this. Martindale confirmed on LFCLive that we would be taking up the 1 year options on Devlin & Guthrie and that would be formalised shortly. 

With Reilly, Lithgow and Jacobs seemingly out for the season, we have a squad of 24. Martindale said previously that there may be some more players going out on loan when League 1 & 2 restarted but I wonder if the Reilly injury will change that. He also hinted at 'injuries' being picked up last night so possibly more than Reilly.

Edited April 25, 2021 by EdinburghLivi

[East Calder Lion]

3 hours ago, Durnford said:

 

I thought Lawson was excellent when he came on - night and day from the guy who turned up on Sunday. Time and again he blunted their attack down our right battling and winning the ball time and again. His passing was far better as well. I really don't understand the jekyll and hyde performances; some games he's fantastic and others pretty anonymous. 

The thing that really let us down though was our attacking strategy (if you can call jumping the ball up to a short lone guy; a strategy).

Limiting what is currently the best form side in the country to one goal isn't much good if you cant add something at the other end. Attacking down the left seemed to be getting some results but we never seemed to capitalise on it.

As for the yellow cards I cant comment on the time wasting one as Sky was too busy showing close ups of Gerard et al but the three we got for shirt tugging etc. were totally pointless. All three happened in the midfield; two if which when there were plenty of others around. We need to stop picking up senseless yellows; Guthrie in particular ended up walking a metaphorical tightrope for the remaining 80+ minutes.

 

 

 

 

 

Seems to depend on where we play Lawson and who is next to him. On Sunday he was standing right next to Holt the whole time, really didn't seem comfortable there.

[Lobby Dossar]

2 hours ago, thruthenight said:

It is though? We might not have picked up a point last night, but we're clearly doing something right. Rangers have scored in every single game they've played this season (including Europe) other than Almondvale earlier in the season, and we were 5 minutes away from keeping them out twice. Unfortunately we just didn't manage to get there, but we've demonstrated that our defensive structure is excellent for the resources we have.

Completely agree with you about Lawson. I really like him as a player, but he'll be MOTM one week and then useless the next.

Think you’ll find that the “shite” pitch has something to do with it 

[Cptn Hooch]

Thought Serrano was doing a good job getting onto all the headers from Stryjek kicking the ball down our wing, we obv had a game plan and for most part it worked. If only our set pieces got back to what they were in our purple patch, hasn't been much in our last few defeats that a set piece goal couldn't have gotten us something, Even in the cup final.

I'm sure we previously used the same tactic against Celtic to great effect. Serrano is fantastic in the air

Seems to depend on where we play Lawson and who is next to him. On Sunday he was standing right next to Holt the whole time, really didn't seem comfortable there.

Lawson seems to work best in a wider position, almost as if he gets lost when he's central. Last night he was winning the ball wider on the right (he may even have been asked to man mark Aribo) and driving forward BEFORE cutting inside. That's where his strengths lie.

[ATLIS]

3 hours ago, Cptn Hooch said:

I'm sure we previously used the same tactic against Celtic to great effect. Serrano is fantastic in the air

Lawson seems to work best in a wider position, almost as if he gets lost when he's central. Last night he was winning the ball wider on the right (he may even have been asked to man mark Aribo) and driving forward BEFORE cutting inside. That's where his strengths lie.

So far this season he's won 40/75 aerial duels. I'd say he's fairly in line with the league average but nothing special. Guthrie on the other hand has won 144/219 (almost 5 and a half every game) which is pretty incredible

[RandomGuy.]

44 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

So far this season he's won 40/75 aerial duels. I'd say he's fairly in line with the league average but nothing special. Guthrie on the other hand has won 144/219 (almost 5 and a half every game) which is pretty incredible

I'm not having a go or anything, I just enjoy having someone on here who's interested in this too.

Of CBs who've played over 800 mins since 15/16, league average is 4.9 header won per game, and a 63.8% win rate.

For FBs over 19/20 and 20/21 it's a 49.51% success rate.

[ATLIS]

1 minute ago, RandomGuy. said:

I'm not having a go or anything, I just enjoy having someone on here who's interested in this too.

Of CBs who've played over 800 mins since 15/16, league average is 4.9 header won per game, and a 63.8% win rate.

For FBs over 19/20 and 20/21 it's a 49.51% success rate.

Cheers, just trying to get into it obviously so everything helps. In the middle of sorting my databases out so don't have full scope for a lot of these things

[ATLIS]

Looks like Nixon is taking us back to court to try reclaim the money we owe him... 

It's being heard on March 17th with his claims that Livi haven't made ample attempts to repay the debt despite the club offering to settle the debt for half the amount up front (which he rejected). His claims are coming from the fact we got 1.1m up front for Dykes (the other 900k is in instalments) and could've paid him there and then. 

John Ward's counter was that we're expected to make a loss of 1.6-2m this season due to COVID. 

SFA also investigating us over links to Gordon Beurskens  who is a 'legal advisor' for the club. 

Worth noting that the money we owe (somewhere between 200-400k) is our entire debt as far as I know, so if it's settled then we're likely debt free. Seems like an iffy few weeks ahead for us though.

[Troy.1995]

6 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

Looks like Nixon is taking us back to court to try reclaim the money we owe him... 

It's being heard on March 17th with his claims that Livi haven't made ample attempts to repay the debt despite the club offering to settle the debt for half the amount up front (which he rejected). His claims are coming from the fact we got 1.1m up front for Dykes (the other 900k is in instalments) and could've paid him there and then. 

John Ward's counter was that we're expected to make a loss of 1.6-2m this season due to COVID. 

SFA also investigating us over links to Gordon Beurskens  who is a 'legal advisor' for the club. 

Worth noting that the money we owe (somewhere between 200-400k) is our entire debt as far as I know, so if it's settled then we're likely debt free. Seems like an iffy few weeks ahead for us though.

Yeh,and coming at the most important time of the season for us. Absolutely typical. More negative media incoming.Just what we needed, not.