Livi v Motherwell 21/8

[ATLIS]

Not sure which way this one will go. We were the better team against St Mirren at the weekend and things seem to be coming together. Obileye and Fitzwater striking up a decent partnership and Anderson showing his value up top. Sibbald is on the best form he's been with us so will probably be vital on Saturday

[Durnford]

Don't know much about Motherwell this season.  Thought they would be weaker with the loss of Gallagher but, having seen his performance for Aberdeen, I'm now not so sure.

We've generally managed to squeeze the odd goal out most games but this losing a lead its beginning to bug me - that and understanding that a game lasts until the referee blows his whistle; not 80 minutes - its not Rugby.

I'm going for a narrow 1-0 win but I'm not overly convinced.

[LIVIFOREVER]

Aye not sure we've got it in us to win a game 1-0, unless it's a late winner so we don't have much time left to hold onto our lead. Wouldn't feel comfortable unless we went 2-0 up.

Think Motherwell have goals in them too, and Watt caused us a lot of trouble last season, should be a good tussle between him and Obileye.  Think we'll just sneak it, 2-1 Livi.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

2 hours ago, Durnford said:

Don't know much about Motherwell this season.  Thought they would be weaker with the loss of Gallagher but, having seen his performance for Aberdeen, I'm now not so sure.

We would be weaker were it for the loss of 2019/20 Gallagher, but unfortunately he was bang average and his best performances came in dark blue last season. That said we still don't have our troubles to seek!

26 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Think Motherwell have goals in them too, and Watt caused us a lot of trouble last season, should be a good tussle between him and Obileye.  Think we'll just sneak it, 2-1 Livi.

For some reason, unbeknown to me, Watt has been on the bench the last two games whilst our front three has been utterly ineffectual. Hopefully this changes at the weekend.

If we play the way we did on Saturday, I wouldn't be that conifdent about getting anything here, but at the same time we will need to start picking up wins from somewhere.

[capt_oats]

As @crazylegsjoe_mfc says, I don't know if fans of other clubs thought it was just sour grapes or whatever when a lot of us were saying that Gallagher had been miles off it for us last season but there was no lie. Our form actually improved when he was out "injured" with "a gun to his head" and Alexander launched him from the side as soon as we were safe and Aberdeen announced his pre-contract (against our wishes).

On the game itself...f**k knows man. Despite us defending like idiots the performance against Hibs was a lot better than a lot of us were expecting and while the performance against St Johnstone wasn't great overall we still dug out a point and scored a, quite frankly, smashing footballing goal.

The LC game on Saturday saw us rest O'Donnell for a guy who hasn't kicked a ball in over 8 months, pair him with a guy making his debut who is new to Scottish fitba' behind a paper thin midfield and minus our two best strikers instead going with a guy like Lawleff who simply isn't good enough and Connor Shields who was making his 2nd appearance and is stepping up from the Championship.

I for one am stunned we didn't show up.

As it stands we're probably about 3 or 4 players short of what we need and it feels like we've been bouncing players in and out for fitness in the League Cup games so the only games we've actually played what on paper looks like our "best" XI were the two league games so we're still very much in the bedding in process.

Assuming Ojala is here as a starter we'd be as well keeping him in and running with it tbh.

If everyone's fit and we've not signed anyone else:

Kelly
O'Donnell Ojala Lamie Carroll
Slattery Donnelly O'Hara
Woolery Van Veen Watt

All in all though, f**k knows...

Edited August 17, 2021 by capt_oats

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Lamie has genuinely been better than Gallagher for us since the start of the 2020/21 season, and I don't rate Lamie particularly highly.

[thruthenight]

3 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

As @crazylegsjoe_mfc says, I don't know if fans of other clubs thought it was just sour grapes or whatever when a lot of us were saying that Gallagher had been miles off it for us last season but there was no lie. Our form actually improved when he was out "injured" with "a gun to his head" and Alexander launched him from the side as soon as we were safe and Aberdeen announced his pre-contract (against our wishes).

On the game itself...f**k knows man. Despite us defending like idiots the performance against Hibs was a lot better than a lot of us were expecting and while the performance against St Johnstone wasn't great overall we still dug out a point and scored a, quite frankly, smashing footballing goal.

The LC game on Saturday saw us rest O'Donnell for a guy who hasn't kicked a ball in over 8 months, pair him with a guy making his debut who is new to Scottish fitba' behind a paper thin midfield and minus our two best strikers instead going with a guy like Lawleff who simply isn't good enough and Connor Shields who was making his 2nd appearance and is stepping up from the Championship.

I for one am stunned we didn't show up.

As it stands we're probably about 3 or 4 players short of what we need and it feels like we've been bouncing players in and out for fitness in the League Cup games so the only games we've actually played what on paper looks like our "best" XI were the two league games so we're still very much in the bedding in process.

Assuming Ojala is here as a starter we'd be as well keeping him in and running with it tbh.

If everyone's fit:

Kelly
O'Donnell Ojala Lamie Carroll
Slattery Donnelly O'Hara
Woolery Van Veen Watt

All in all though, f**k knows...

Of all of the former Livi players you guys have poached over the last couple of seasons, I'm surprised that Lawless is the one labelled 'Not good enough'. He was absolutely class with us, and was a driving force behind us finishing 5th. Lamie and Crawford both seem to get more game time, which is a little mad from my perspective.

This is a game we need to take something from, ideally 3 points. Brutal start to the season for us, but a win here would make it look a lot better after the inevitable struggle against Hibs and Celtic in the next few weeks.

[ZX1886]

Considering myself lucky I won’t be able to see/hear this game on Saturday and instead will be out in Glasgow waiting for the inevitable ‘FT: Livingston 1-0 Motherwell’ notification to come through to ruin my day.

Livi not exactly had a confident start to the season, made more of a mess of the LC groups than we did yet are still In the cup and we’re not...

I’d like GA to go with a change of formation that see’s Watt and Van Veen paired up top. We really need to do something about the midfield and hopefully this is the week GA drops the 4-3-3 that see’s us constantly outplayed in the middle of the park.

Livingston 1-1 Motherwell.

Edited August 17, 2021 by ZX1886

[well fan for life]

1 minute ago, ZX1886 said:

Considering myself lucky I won’t be able to see/hear this game on Saturday and instead will be out in Glasgow waiting for the inevitable ‘FT: Livingston 1-0 Motherwell’ notification to come through to ruin my day.

Livi not exactly had a confident start to the season, made more of a mess of the LC groups than we did yet are still In and we’re not...

I’d like GA to go with a change of formation that see’s Watt and Van Veen paired up top. We really need to do something about the midfield and hopefully this is the week GA drops the 4-3-3 that’s see us constantly outplayed in the middle of the park.

Livingston 1-1 Motherwell.

Aye I'd at least like to see us look more joined up going forward so maybe moving 2 forwards closer together is the way to do that. I'd sooner drop Woolery and see if we can drop a body in to midfield to maybe make us a bit less soft in there. 

[Swello]

To me, at this point, Lawless looks like a skillful championship player that doesn't have the pace/physicality to step up to the top level (and I thought he always looked decent for Livi against us).

[well fan for life]

20 minutes ago, Swello said:

To me, at this point, Lawless looks like a skillful championship player that doesn't have the pace/physicality to step up to the top level (and I thought he always looked decent for Livi against us).

I mind him looking great against us but his legs look completely gone now. Would be world class at fives but he cannae move. I know a couple of Thistle fans who adore him so if they want to give Hastie a bit of competition they can help themselves. 

[Swello]

I think it's fair to say that we wouldn't sign him under our new/current recruitment approach but it made perfect sense (to me) last season when we were in panic mode and bringing in a grab bag of players from down south - having someone who knew the league well and had looked good at our level should have been a good move (didn't work that way obviously).

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Tbf our squads over the last few seasons would have absolutely ripped up the 2011-12 Irn Bru First Division

['WellDel]

1 hour ago, well fan for life said:

Aye I'd at least like to see us look more joined up going forward so maybe moving 2 forwards closer together is the way to do that. I'd sooner drop Woolery and see if we can drop a body in to midfield to maybe make us a bit less soft in there. 

I'd tend to agree with this. Woolery has pace to burn, but his decision making and final balls have been very poor.

Would like to see how two up top in Watt and Van Veen worked out with an extra body making us more competitive in midfield. O'Hara, although I'm not overly sold on him, can be good (enough) on his day and is the obvious choice to slot in. If nothing else, it's an extra body to add competition and industry in there, and might help free up Slattery a bit more to do his thang linking middle to front. 

Kelly

O'Donnell  Ojala  Lamie Carroll

Slattery  Donnely  O'Hara  Maguire

Watt  KVV

 

I've voiced my opinions on Lamie before, and tbh he has been decent in recent outings, but there's no getting away from the fact he's always one challenge/clearance away from a complete brain fart. However he's the only available left sided option in there as Alexander obviously doesn't fancy giving big Toby McG a shot, so hey-ho.

I'd settle for4 points from the next 6 by shitfesting a 1-1 in this game, along with a revenge victory over Dundee at Fir Park in the next one ,when Alexander could go with the novel approach of fielding his strongest fucking team.

Edited August 17, 2021 by 'WellDel

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, Swello said:

I think it's fair to say that we wouldn't sign him under our new/current recruitment approach but it made perfect sense (to me) last season when we were in panic mode and bringing in a grab bag of players from down south - having someone who knew the league well and had looked good at our level should have been a good move (didn't work that way obviously).

I think that's pretty much it.

The whole thing had a strong marriage of convenience feel to it.

It seems he hadn't settled at Burton, he'd picked up an injury and wanted to come back up the road. We were heading into panic signing mode and given the circumstances with the 'rona and everything it was extremely slim pickings so on the face of it a player who's local, knows the club and the league not to mention had done well "at our level" with Thistle and Livi.

Add to the fact that he'd played with a bunch of the squad at Livi and Thistle then in theory you're signing someone who should integrate with the squad.

Where it gets all "Captain Hindsight" is when you realise that Robinson had been considering his position since mid-December as had Foyle so given Robinson resigned on 31st December, Alexander was appointed on the 7th Jan and Lawleff was announced on the 15th and Foyle had given his notice after Robinson left it seems doubtful to me that he was "an Alexander signing".

In fact most of the business in that window was unapologetically short term.

Fast forward to now and we've got a player who hadn't played much when we signed him, was injured after 20 mins of his 2nd debut and has a manager who may/may not have signed him and doesn't really seem to know what to do with him given he's been shuffling him between wide right and #10 and not really having much joy other than against lower league sides.

Edited August 17, 2021 by capt_oats

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

I think Lawless has been marginally better this season so far than he was last season, but that says more about last season than it does this.

He's not quick enough to be a winger, not skillful enough to be a #10 and the less said about Saturday's attempt to play him through the middle (I couldn't bring myself to refer to it as a false nine) the better.

It's a shame as I was quite pleased we signed him. I'd have been lying if I'd said I'd watched a lot of his games, but I definitely heard his name mentioned in a good light frequently when he was at Livi.

[capt_oats]

12 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I think Lawless has been marginally better this season so far than he was last season, but that says more about last season than it does this.

He's not quick enough to be a winger, not skillful enough to be a #10 and the less said about Saturday's attempt to play him through the middle (I couldn't bring myself to refer to it as a false nine) the better.

It's a shame as I was quite pleased we signed him. I'd have been lying if I'd said I'd watched a lot of his games, but I definitely heard his name mentioned in a good light frequently when he was at Livi.

I think what's telling is the context of the games he's been marginally better this season.

He scored against Queens Park, he had an excellent assist off the bench for Watt's goal against St Johnstone but it seems relevant that he hasn't been trusted to start in either of the league games but he started against QP, Queen of The South, Airdrie and Dundee without being a stand out in any of them.

As it stands with the way we set up he's a bit of a curate's egg that I don't think fits with either the type of player we look like we've been trying to bring in or with the qualities we need from a senior player in the group.

Edited August 17, 2021 by capt_oats

['WellDel]

Like many, when he signed I thought Lawless was a good addition to the squad by means of the regard he was held in by the Livi fans. Whether he was actually ever as good as they thought, or his injuries have had a major effect I don't know, but he certainly seems like a busted flush and way below the level required. 

His doubling down and stance on going to watch his favourite team in a capacity crowd, whilst footballers are still subject to more covid restrictions than the rest of us hasn't helped endear him to the support much either. (couldn't give a monkeys who he supports, just have a bit of savvy and read the room before trying to be funny in your social media comments).

Is 'Unapologetically Staunch' a trait/skill that he could put to use elsewhere?, cos he's got that nailed.

[capt_oats]

6 minutes ago, 'WellDel said:

Like many, when he signed I thought Lawless was a good addition to the squad by means of the regard he was held in by the Livi fans. Whether he was actually ever as good as they thought, or his injuries have had a major effect I don't know, but he certainly seems like a busted flush and way below the level required. 

His doubling down and stance on going to watch his favourite team in a capacity crowd, whilst footballers are still subject to more covid restrictions than the rest of us hasn't helped endear him to the support much either. (couldn't give a monkeys who he supports, just have a bit of savvy and read the room before trying to be funny in your social media comments).

Is 'Unapologetically Staunch' a trait/skill that he could put to use elsewhere?, cos he's got that nailed.

Given we made a big thing about how we'd deep dive into getting the right "character" in by checking their socials Lawleff's "unapologetic ***" persona is one that made me think we were either willing to overlook it on account of us needing a body in or we've just sacked off trying to avoid signing obvious c***s.

Liam Kelly's Twitter TL also marks him out as OFTW but the less said about that the better given we've made him vice-fucking-captain.

[Cptn Hooch]

23 minutes ago, 'WellDel said:

His doubling down and stance on going to watch his favourite team in a capacity crowd, whilst footballers are still subject to more covid restrictions than the rest of us hasn't helped endear him to the support much either. (couldn't give a monkeys who he supports, just have a bit of savvy and read the room before trying to be funny in your social media comments).

Is 'Unapologetically Staunch' a trait/skill that he could put to use elsewhere?, cos he's got that nailed.

I was so shocked at his celebrations in front of the rangers fans when he scored against them after what I'd seen and heard about his social media