The Wrong Car

As much as I generally agree he’s been underused, Anderson has been on the pitch plenty this season and not contributed. It seems like Martindale’s insistence on playing a target man and his diabetic fit at Easter Road seem to stop him playing many full games, which is frustrating I’d play him every game as we’re a better team with him in it, however his missed penalty against Kilmarnock and missed chances against Hibs and Aberdeen are massive contributions to our poor form.

He's the best finisher at the club, and his all-round game has improved while here He's been underused this season, however I'd say him (and Stephen Kelly) have became better players the more they're out the team. He's definitely under performed this year. A good signing for any Premiership team, in any case.

I have to say I'm a bit dubious about the rumours he headbutted Martindale. They only seemed to come to light when he was leaving, despite it apparently being public knowledge for a few months. It seems like the sort of thing that would leak from a fractured dressing room fairly quickly. Martindale has previous for sidelining players for months on end for all sorts of reasons, so the fact he still included De Lucas right up to his last game doesn't really add up. There's a few folk that insist that Martindale has lost the dressing room, using De Lucas as an example, however I'd argue the performance against Hearts went some way to refuting that . Just to add - I liked De Lucas as a player. He was a bit suspect positionally, and lost a few physical battles for an aggressive CB but he added a fair bit of pace to a slow backline.

Given there’s still no meeting planned, and every Trust post has numerous fans commenting that they ‘think’ they’re in the Trust I don’t think the Trust - in its current form - can do this. I think everyone appreciates the effort the Trust put in, however creating a dedicated email address plus a PDF version of the registration form could have been an easy solution. Instead there’s been a “we’re doomed” post 12 days ago and nothing since

I think the Trust got dragged into the Nixon/McDougall issues too much. It didn’t help that there was a Trust Director on the board when we decided to sack a double promotion-winning manager to let Hughes and Collins have a go at running a club, or the fact the same director subsequently left the board and starting making statements about being a former Livi fan. Not an ideal candidate for fan representation.

One issue at the moment is the lack of a functioning Supporters Trust. They do a lot to support the club amongst themselves, and own a fairly large number of shares, however seem adverse to promoting themselves. The fact they don’t have a functioning website, sign up sheets have to be printed off and handed in to a location that changes, and they still haven’t arranged a meeting despite making a number of online posts about the upcoming cases is frustrating.

Haven’t heard anything personally but it would make sense. He’s been woefully underused the past year, but has proven himself to be capable at this level. McInnes would obviously know him for Aberdeen as well

So Ward not making a statement is bad, yet offering to attend a LFL is also bad? It sounds like the LFL needs to sort itself out before anything else, judging by the recent posts

As someone mentioned before, George is the sort of keeper that won’t make horrendous clangers but also won’t dig you out a hole in a game In terms of his kicking, it doesn’t help he’s told to always target wider players like Nicky Devlin (last season), Montano and Nouble etc

As much as the recent comments about the signings are damning, given Martindale signed them, I don’t think having a team bus and maintaining it is the biggest issue at the club In terms of his media comments, it’s clearly just post-match deflection at this point. It’s not budget that’s stopping Bradley, Kelly or Anderson being used or Bahamboula being shunned

I'd say Parkes. Bahamboula, either Brandon or Welch-Hayes, Bitsindou and possibly Boyes (similar to Mullin loan recall/transfer last year) could be leaving. Is De Lucas injured? If not, he may also be on the way out given he's not played recently. The fact Montano came on at RWB over two natural RBs last game says a lot about Martindale's thoughts on his two RB options It's encouraging that Martindale seems to be suggesting this guy is essentially providing squad depth to allow reinforcements up front, however it's going to need to be a hell of a signing to get us out this mess

It was a screenshot from the Facebook forum, as that's where I saw it years ago. I completely agree the case is an example of wasting money, however your defence of Hogarth and his motives is based completely on evidence only you have seen

Maybe I've seen the bank transactions as well? Also, I'm pretty sure funds provided by Robert Wilson (when he was a director) are mentioned in the accounts a few years ago Again, for the sake of clarity, you're entitled to these views about the board. However I'm not sure why you become seething when folk don't blindly follow your logic based on hearsay? It's evident you're close to Hogarth and his case, however other folk are also entitled to view him as they please.

So in your view any money given to the club by other directors is viewed as the club's money, any money given by Hogarth is ringfenced as Hogarth's?

Genuine question - why is it the "clubs money" when Ward is involved, yet Hogarth's "own money" when he decided to withdraw it on a whim? Anyway, this reminded me of Hogath's excellent Twitter bio around the time he was removed from the board. A man clearly not lacking in hubris

Aye, it's hard to see why most folk hold goodwill to Martindale and Ward (two key figures in our double promotion) rather than Neil Hogarth (a guy who cut himself checks from the club) As I said before, it's absolutely fair to question decisions made by the club, and this season has been a shiteshow both on and off the pitch, however re-framing Hogarth as some sort of blameless figure in this is nonsense McDougall, Rankine, Hogath, Stoker and Ward may have helped save the clubs from the Italian regime, however it's clear there's a lot of bruised egos coming out now

Aye, I'd put Ciaron Brown, Sarkic, and Serrano as the only 3 good loans who contributed over an entire season Bailey looked decent, however didn't actually contribute much in the way of goals and assist. Given the rest have ranged from forgettable (Lewis, Soto) to atrocious (McCrorie, Chukwuemeka) it's no surprise Martindale generally avoids it as a place to provide squad depth from In terms of this season, it feels like we've signed a bunch of players who are 'projects' that could come good given time that we no longer have(Sangare, Lawal, Welch-Hayes) and others who are too injured to really judge (Nottingham, Lloyd, Mackay)

Fair points, however I meant 'cheap punts' in relation to their place in the squad, often as 3rd/4th choice. I doubt you'll ever get players happy to do that for more than 2 seasons, meaning you have to continually buy fairly poor players either from a foreign market, loans or lower league players This season's problem seems to be we're relying on these cheaper reserve options, such as Kelly and Shinnie for example, rather than the likes of more established players like Omeonga as backup

The majority of that list are fairly cheap punts and signed as squad depth, with only Parkes being signed (and kept long term)to be a key player (replacing Jon Guthrie) Given we sign about 8 players a season minimum, Martindale's signings over his tenure have tended to be decent.

There's pretty much three groups at the moment across Livi fans The first group is essentially happy clappers who'll just repeat "Trust the Process" to any criticism of the players and staff The second group focus mainly on Martindale, and generally don't seem to like him at the club (which is a fair, personal option) However they tend to disappear when form is good, and then come back with nonsense claims like he lost the dressing room 2 years ago etc. They also can't seem to put the blame on the players themselves, and view any poor moments as poor coaching rather than players being fairly shite on a game by game basis. It's entirely fair to continually question the motivations of those in charge (this is a Livingston board), however they seem to take any sort of response as them being silenced, and generally come across a bit sanctimonious (particularly on the FB forum) The third group seems to be most Livi fans, who see this season as a culmination of poor tactics and squad planning (which is on Martindale) and poor player choices impacting games (Montano vs Dundee etc). I'd personally give Martindale the December games, however his future will depend on if he uses the likes of Bradley, Stephen Kelly and Mackay etc in these games. Continually picking the likes of Shinnie, Sean Kelly etc as key starters will soon turn the latter group firmly against him

Aye, I can't see a big move on current form, although signing him seemed to prevent the yearly recruitment of loanees and non-league players we've signed as GK, which is nice He's arguably always been on the downswing, moving from Liverpool to Colchester/Livi. His injury last season ,and rushing back due to Konovalov leaving, really seemed to disrupt that early form

Agreed, and there's been plenty of goals he could do better with. However he's not yet started to let comedy goals like Stryjek away to Hibs in. I liked Max as a keeper, however he struggled to displace one of the worst keepers in recent times in Robbie McCrorie, then never really kept any consistency after that when he was undisputed Number 1. On his day he was fantastic, however many Livi fans seem to view his spell in goal with rose-tinted glasses on.

I'd agree with the above - Stryjek made more wonder saves however also had more clangers (Hibs away, ICT in the cup etc) His kicking was also much worse, as he'd regularly end up smashing the ball with no height towards an attacker George doesn't make the same number of wonder saves, however also doesn't make as many massively glaring errors (minus a couple of challenges outside the box) He definitely could do better with a few efforts, however he's also playing in front of a worse and ever changing defence

Manager speaks to CEO -> CEO speaks to CFO and Chairman -> Joint decision made What a concept! Of course you have every right to question motivations etc (this is the Livi board we're talking about), however it sounds more like you have an issue with Black, Ward etc. I'd be more concerned in McIlvogue got involved and emptied the entire club for the sake of change to be honest.

I may have misread, but are you saying that the CEO shouldn't be involved in any sort of financial decision? A common theme on this thread at the moment then