Livingston - all the threads merged

[East Calder Lion]

Last time I saw Berra at the Tony Macaroni Dolly had just put him on his backside

[ATLIS]

Maybe going against the grain a bit but not too keen on Hastings, wasn't exactly liked as a player and his return as a coach was received with a bit of a mild reaction to say the least.

Guy could be a good coach, who knows. He's been here a year learning but just a tad underwhelming

[Durnford]

1 hour ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

I must be missing what you're all seeing in Guthrie, is he playing great when i go to the toilet? 

Yep; the grumbling prostate is a bu@@er.

Ages to start and never know when you're finished.

[ol1vercloff]

Dropping a deuce at the football must be unpleasant.  The toilets at Livi are freezing whatever the weather!

[The Wrong Car]

1 hour ago, ATLIS said:

Maybe going against the grain a bit but not too keen on Hastings, wasn't exactly liked as a player and his return as a coach was received with a bit of a mild reaction to say the least.

Guy could be a good coach, who knows. He's been here a year learning but just a tad underwhelming

He suffered from being part of Richie Burke's staff, along with his crazy performance out of retirement against QOTS when Iain Russell destroyed him. 

Since then he's left the club, worked as a youth coach, managed at Lowland League, came back to Livi and worked with the youths, reserves and first team. I'd say it's his lower profile compared to Barley and Imrie that'll stop him being poached, rather than any coaching ability. 

Does anyone who now leads the Academy? It was Imrie, who also acted as a link with the first team, then Hastings took it over once he left

[EdinburghLivi]

42 minutes ago, The Wrong Car said:

Does anyone who now leads the Academy? It was Imrie, who also acted as a link with the first team, then Hastings took it over once he left

https://livingstonfc.co.uk/team/academy/staff/

James Dunn. Hadn't heard of him before this.

[Troy.1995]

5 hours ago, East Calder Lion said:

Last time I saw Berra at the Tony Macaroni Dolly had just put him on his backside

Ive got that whole game on DVD.Hope to god that particular defensive display doesn't haunt us with his appointment. .

[LIVIFOREVER]

6 hours ago, Cptn Hooch said:

How long do you spend in the loo? 

 

4 hours ago, Durnford said:

Yep; the grumbling prostate is a bu@@er.

Ages to start and never know when you're finished.

No problems there, yet.

A few times when one of us has gone to the toilet we've scored a goal, so now it's an in joke when we're struggling in a game for someone to go for a pee so we score while they're away.  Was going to say take one for the team going for a pish but that could've got taken a whole different way from what i was meaning. 

[LIVIFOREVER]

6 hours ago, East Calder Lion said:

Last time I saw Berra at the Tony Macaroni Dolly had just put him on his backside

 

24 minutes ago, Troy.1995 said:

Ive got that whole game on DVD.Hope to god that particular defensive display doesn't haunt us with his appointment. .

He put 5 or 6 of them on their arses that game before sticking it through their keepers legs. Was some goal, and some game.

[ATLIS]

Interestingly enough I've just saw Dolly's found himself a new club MCS Liegé

[EdinburghLivi]

1 hour ago, ATLIS said:

Interestingly enough I've just saw Dolly's found himself a new club MCS Liegé

Looks like Belgian 7th tier. Wonder where he'd be if he hadn't gone to Angola.

[EdinburghLivi]

Big fan of this. Comes across as a clever guy with answers that are well thought out.

Neil Hastings LSC.

[Cptn Hooch]

22 hours ago, ATLIS said:

Maybe going against the grain a bit but not too keen on Hastings, wasn't exactly liked as a player and his return as a coach was received with a bit of a mild reaction to say the least.

Guy could be a good coach, who knows. He's been here a year learning but just a tad underwhelming

Wasn't great as a player but that shouldn't have any bearing on his coaching ability. He's got a bit of coaching experience already for such a young age with him running the youth coaching while still playing for us. He's also been a manager in his own right at Gala Fairydean with some success. Comes across as a decent guy, knows the club, Davie rates him and trusts him...I can't see a bad side to the announcement 

[LIVIFOREVER]

31 minutes ago, Cptn Hooch said:

Wasn't great as a player but that shouldn't have any bearing on his coaching ability. He's got a bit of coaching experience already for such a young age with him running the youth coaching while still playing for us. He's also been a manager in his own right at Gala Fairydean with some success. Comes across as a decent guy, knows the club, Davie rates him and trusts him...I can't see a bad side to the announcement 

Here's an article about Martindale appointing Berra as a coach, and Hastings as his assistant. Livingston boss delighted to finally land former Hearts defender as coach - Daily Record

 

Quote

"Neil brings a wealth of experience even though he is a very young coach. I felt it was important to have some continuity in terms of my assistant. I’ve had nine years at the club and he was here when I joined. When I came in the club was a shambles and I’ve always felt a bit of regret in terms of how he was treated because he lost his job as a young coach, the club had no money.

“He’s still maybe got time to branch out on his own maybe in five, ten years time, I don’t know. It’s a lot easier to lose coaches than assistant managers, I’ve addressed that problem in terms with Neilly and I’m looking to build that relationship and be a management duo."

 

[The Wrong Car]

Sounds like Hastings has indicated he's happy to stay, whereas Berra (similar to Bartley) could move into management sooner in that case

[mozam76]

14 hours ago, EdinburghLivi said:

Big fan of this. Comes across as a clever guy with answers that are well thought out.

Neil Hastings LSC.

Spot on. 

[ATLIS]

I think we've navigated this run of fixtures pretty decently. There's a massive run of games coming up though, post-Dundee Utd we've got Hearts, Celtic, Killie (must win IMO), Rangers, Aberdeen and then Hibs. 

That run could very well see us slide down the table but if we were to take say, 7 or 8 points from the 18 available I'd think that's somewhat of a success. It puts a lot of pressure onto our run in to the split though with that run being:

Ross County, St Mirren, Motherwell, St Johnstone, Dundee Utd. 

So with 33 points available pre-split, would another 12 (taking us to 43pts) be enough for top 6? Obviously the more we get now the better if we truly are chasing European football. 

46/48 points were enough post-split for Motherwell (5th) and Dundee Utd (4th) to get there last season. 45/56 were enough in 20/21 for St Johnstone (5th) and Aberdeen (4th). 

Last season was notorious for being a close run in for top 6/Europe though with teams forming a big mid table glob in the last 5-6 games pre-split. 

It didn't count for Europe but 18-19 saw 54pts get 5th (Hibs) and 67 tie for 3rd/4th (Killie and Aberdeen). 

A win against Dundee Utd and Killie before/in the middle of this run would be absolutely massive for our aspirations if it's what Martindale is really aiming for

Edited January 15, 2023 by ATLIS

[thruthenight]

33 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

I think we've navigated this run of fixtures pretty decently. There's a massive run of games coming up though, post-Dundee Utd we've got Hearts, Celtic, Killie (must win IMO), Rangers, Aberdeen and then Hibs. 

That run could very well see us slide down the table but if we were to take say, 7 or 8 points from the 18 available I'd think that's somewhat of a success. It puts a lot of pressure onto our run in to the split though with that run being:

Ross County, St Mirren, Motherwell, St Johnstone, Dundee Utd. 

So with 33 points available pre-split, would another 12 (taking us to 43pts) be enough for top 6? Obviously the more we get now the better if we truly are chasing European football. 

46/48 points were enough post-split for Motherwell (5th) and Dundee Utd (4th) to get there last season. 45/56 were enough in 20/21 for St Johnstone (5th) and Aberdeen (4th). 

Last season was notorious for being a close run in for top 6/Europe though with teams forming a big mid table glob in the last 5-6 games pre-split. 

It didn't count for Europe but 18-19 saw 54pts get 5th (Hibs) and 67 tie for 3rd/4th (Killie and Aberdeen). 

A win against Dundee Utd and Killie before/in the middle of this run would be absolutely massive for our aspirations if it's what Martindale is really aiming for

Agree with this. The Motherwell/St Mirren results weren't great, but we're improving and we're in a decent spot in the table now. 

If we're still in the top 6 at the end of february, we'll be in a great spot. Although last season taught me not to count any chickens

[LIVIFOREVER]

We were on a good run pre WC break, then things took a dive. After the Hibs gubbing things looked bleak, esp with Nouble out and Anderson not back to his best getting goals. The 2 home draws kinda stopped the rot but were still pretty poor, only getting 2 pts from home games against teams below us. The back to back away wins have massively made a brighter outlook, and helped make the home draws look better too, getting 8 pts from our last 4 games. Scoring 6 goals with 3 different scorers is excellent too.

Hopefully Anderson limping off isn't anything serious, because Nouble can't be far away from playing and having both him and Anderson fit would be pretty mouth watering going into the business end of the season up to the split. Kelly too looking good value for scoring a few more goals, has a very good shot on him and as i said in another thread, he is scoring the type of goals Pittman used to, which we have missed.

 

A win at home against Utd would set us up nicely for Hearts at home on Sun, i'll wait and see how those games go before getting too carried away though.

[Kris]

2 hours ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

We were on a good run pre WC break, then things took a dive. After the Hibs gubbing things looked bleak, esp with Nouble out and Anderson not back to his best getting goals. The 2 home draws kinda stopped the rot but were still pretty poor, only getting 2 pts from home games against teams below us. The back to back away wins have massively made a brighter outlook, and helped make the home draws look better too, getting 8 pts from our last 4 games. Scoring 6 goals with 3 different scorers is excellent too.

Hopefully Anderson limping off isn't anything serious, because Nouble can't be far away from playing and having both him and Anderson fit would be pretty mouth watering going into the business end of the season up to the split. Kelly too looking good value for scoring a few more goals, has a very good shot on him and as i said in another thread, he is scoring the type of goals Pittman used to, which we have missed.

 

A win at home against Utd would set us up nicely for Hearts at home on Sun, i'll wait and see how those games go before getting too carried away though.

Any word yet on Anderson?