ATLIS

I'm interested in hearing Martindale say that he's had a few player's agents come to him and tell him it's time they moved on - the kind of guys that don't have the heart for a relegation fight. Who could that be? He said 2 or 3, and there's 4 or 5 rotation players who aren't up to the quality of a relegation fight he says, who are those? Agents 2-3, Nouble, Shamal, Bruce/Penrice? Rotation 4-5, Welch-Hayes, Brandon, Bradley, Lawal, Luiyi, Lloyd, Kelly? Then there's Bahamboula and Bitsindou, Dan Mackay likely gone too. Teto can't contribute. I can see this being a window of 6/7 out and 5/6 in. We need to be busy

This is a proper must win game. If we drop points here then you’d imagine Martindale’s on wobbly ground. This and the Motherwell game are arguably ones we need at least 4 points from, maybe 6.

IMO get Lawal in starting ahead of Shinnie. Get Nouble out ASAP. We move on, one of those games we don’t expect anything from

Another day of Guerin having a normal one then eh? The one time I've ever actually met a Meadowbank fan was when I was seeing a girl a few years ago, turned out her dad was a Meadowbank fan.

Genuinely POTY for us so far, locked down the LB/LWB spot

I don't think I can be arsed listening to Martindale say we played well and didn't deserve to lose. Same old shite every time.

f**k sake

I’ve just saw the ball go into the net that isn’t our one, what are we meant to do when that happens again?

That part is the one that makes this make sense to me, we lost a defender in the summer that had that as his biggest attribute and the team has struggled offensively on that side since. I feel you with the overturn of players, we're very similar. It's nearly a new squad every season. We essentially play 5 at the back, so he can bomb forward without worrying too much about the defensive side behind him with 3 CBs there. If he's got pace, can just get up and down the wing and occasionally swing a cross in then he doesn't need to do too much more.

Sounds to me like Martindale sees him as first choice RB/RWB, Welch-Hayes didn't work out and neither did Brandon. Given that he can cover CM/CB it likely means we can comfortably let go of: Bitsindou (CDM/CM/CB) Bahamboula (RW/RWB) Welch-Hayes/Brandon (RB/RWB) MacKay may stay back at Hibs with his injury (RW/RWB/RB) Danny Lloyd, contract expiry (LB/LWB) Boyes/Luiyi/Parkes, one of those, likely Boyes I'd imagine but he may just stay on loan (CB) That would hopefully open up the wages for 6 spaces, or condensed into 3-4 quality signings. You would imagine that would cover: RB/RWB/CB/CM - Donnellan CM - ? RW - ? ST - ? The left side of the team is arguably our strongest point, down that wing with Penrice and Nouble, with Montano as cover. The right side has been terrible all season. We need a bit more legs in the middle, Shinnie isn't cutting it and Pittman's ability is fading fast. Stephen Kelly at CAM, Holt and Sangare in behind would work for me IMO but a new midfielder is probably needed as cover. I think this is probably our strongest starting side at the minute but playing it is another thing. I'd rather see us return to something like the 433 that worked previously for us.

Would make a lot of sense, he's always had a thing against Livi. Something I've noticed for a while where he gives no credit to us even when we're winning

Think a lot of that still goes on, Ajax stealing Feyenoord's captain on a free a few seasons ago was a big one. There's a lot more dealing between clubs though, money spent seems to circulate around that league more than it would here.

A Livi with 1 win in 4 months, no goals from open play since October 7th, shitfesting a win would be incredible.

Those figures are far off it The mental part of you being wrong about it is that Parkes is actually on about 120k p/y pre-tax apparently. Average wage at the club is 60k p/a. When I heard about Parkes' wages I thought it was a joke at first, he's one of the highest earners at the club.

My only actual reference to another league is Dutch football, but I'd comfortably say that the quality there is above and beyond Scottish football for the most part but there's crossover in the difference. That's mainly down to budgets though, the root of the issue is the TV deal that is about 10-15 years out of date in terms of actual value. This year you've got PSV and Feyenoord that could correlate to your Celtic and Rangers, two teams that seem to be a cut above. Then you've got Ajax on an off season who in recent memory have made it to the semis of a UCL. Twente are having a decent season in 3rd but they'd probably comfortably handle a Hearts/Hibs/Aberdeen as would AZ. The middle of that Eredivise is a weird one though, we beat Fortuna Sittard in a (friendly) cup final last winter while they could afford to have Burak Yilmaz up front that was probably comfortably on 10k+ p/w. Teams in that middle bit like Sparta Rotterdam, Heerenveen, Go Ahead Eagles, Nijmegen and Utrecht probably all slot comfortably into a top 6 European chasing side mould for the Premiership. Most of them, though, probably have clubs on double or triple what the likes of a Livi, St Johnstone or Ross County do. Bottom end of it clubs like Volendam, Waalwijk and Almelo are bottom end Premiership clubs scrapping relegation. Volendam for example have Garang Kuol playing most weeks for them. Then again you have second tier Gronigen paying 6k+ p/w for Van Veen in the second tier and are sitting 9th (I'm aware it's not really worked for him but the budgets are the same regardless of position). Hilarious aside, that second division is called The Kitchen Champion division! There's no real way to accurately predict how those teams would do but the budgets are a big part of the conversation, the quality of football is a lot higher than a lot of the stuff served up weekly here though. That may be influenced by me watching Livi 'play' football though.

It was funny at first but now it's just ended up with inane ramblings. Highlight of it was them being outed as close to/being Hogarth for me. Some schtick to keep up for 6+ months though, nevertheless an interesting way to try get people onto their side.

Every time I think I've got this guy's account blocked he makes a new one Anyway, there's an example of them providing one sided facts to back up their support of Rankine/Hogarth. I think that's going on about 6 months+ they've been at it ffs

What actual value does the club have? It’s nonsense to compare us to a club like St Johnstone when they own their stadium - that alone is worth a huge chunk of money. What do Livingston FC actually own as a club to drive that value up other than the status of a Premiership side?

Despite the point, shite. Martindale has absolutely sapped the confidence out of guys like Bruce Anderson - who by all accounts is one of our best players. To drop him, Stephen Kelly and any player with a bit of flare is stinking. IMO time is up for him. We have no discernible style of play other than to disrupt what the other team are doing. The last 10 or so games have been 10 2021 League Cup finals, 10 Marvin Bartleys at wing back. It's painful to watch. No goal from open play in almost 3 months ffs.

It's taking us a long long time to shake him off, once we finally do then it'll be a great day.

And we’re meant to believe these accounts have nothing to do with either of the two dragging the club into court I wonder when this person will eventually realise that no one is taking their bait, no one’s buying into their side of the story.

It's only bleak because 2-3 accounts are making it bleak. In all reality it's one person with multiple accounts spreading doom and gloom

McIlvogue is unknown at this point but he's offered to come in underwrite losses and put a bit of investment in. Previous brownie points for being the guy that saved Mortons Rolls. Livi fans as always, will, and should be sceptical of any new owners. Rankine and Hogarth at this point, aye, in the eyes of your normal Livi fan are the bad guys. Rankine the long term villain. John Ward came into the club when we went to League 1, made the decision to keep us full time and got us back to running on a hard line stance of 'no operating losses'. Basically oversaw us going from League 1 to Premiership and was involved in a lot of the business in getting us ready for that step up. Eyes of most Livi fans he's a good guy, or the good guy.

I'm somewhat optimistic with this one, don't know why. Maybe my brain has finally turned to mush watching the football we 'play'

A few random accounts on here spouting nonsense, using their 'insider' information from two individuals that Livi are in court with. They're basically trying to unsettle the Livi support while trying to make Rankine and Hogarth out as the 'good guys'. Rankine has been chasing the club for debts owed to him, it was ruled to be repayable when affordable yet he keeps dragging it back into court if we sell a player or get a cup tie against Rangers/Celtic - despite this we're still not in a position to pay it back. Hogarth took money out the club during COVID to keep his other businesses afloat, the club had accountants going through the books and that was shown up as irregular. The club took him to court over it, it was sent back to the lawyers to reformat the case as it was essentially presented in a nonsense way - still ongoing. Both, as far as I know, are halting the takeover by McIlvogue and stopping further investment coming into the club (club is apparently being sold for 400k, value seems a bit low compared to other clubs). McIlvogue however has promised to underwrite any losses from this season and give the club a stronger foothold, every chance Rankine and Hogarth push forward in trying to kill the club by stopping more investment coming in.