Livingston - all the threads merged

[LIVIFOREVER]

5 hours ago, East Calder Lion said:

So Martindale says he will still be manager on game 38 no matter what.  I think he and Rice need to go now.

Some people thinking there was something positive in last night's performance, I don't agree, particularly once you reflect on where Ross County are in the league and the run they have been on.

Martindale has ruined Anderson, St.Kelly and Bradley, how much more damage will he do between now and the end of the season?

 

Positives for me was we're at least scoring goals, and making lots of chances too, getting balls into the box. We were on a run of 4 goals in 13 games, we've now scored 5 goals in our last 3 games. Coming back twice from a goal down, and also coming from behind for the Raith cup win shows the players have some fight in them too, and not downed tools.

Defensively we're still a mess though and it is costing us massively, sort that out and we'd at least have a chance in getting pts.

 

 

[Freedom Farter]

Brandon was excellent again last night. Shades of McNamee with his composure on the ball. He's surely convinced Martindale now that he's our first choice right back or right wing back. He's contracted for next season too.

[LIVIFOREVER]

3 hours ago, Livi La Vida Loca said:

Although we were better going forward last night we still weren't clinical enough. Both Anderson and Bradley should have scored their chances last night. The change in formation means more chances created but we have to start scoring more to make up for the fact that our defence is god awful. 

For me the last 2 games were win or bust and my opinion hasn't changed so sadly I can't see anything other than us going down. 

I hope to be proven wrong and we pull off a miracle escape but for me some focus must turn to next season and making sure the club can stay in the championship as we will have a big squad rebuild on our hands. 

You say that but 2 goals should be enough to get us a win, but our dodgy defence means we're having to score 3 or 4 goals in games, which just isn't realistic every game. You get the odd 3 or 4 goal result, but even the erse cheeks don't get those every week. It's still our defending that's killing us.

[LIVIFOREVER]

Just now, Freedom Farter said:

Brandon was excellent again last night. Shades of McNamee with his composure on the ball. He's surely convinced Martindale now that he's our first choice right back or right wing back. He's contracted for next season too.

Yeah Brandon and MacKay should be starting every game for the rest of the season.

[Durnford]

57 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

You say that but 2 goals should be enough to get us a win, but our dodgy defence means we're having to score 3 or 4 goals in games, which just isn't realistic every game. You get the odd 3 or 4 goal result, but even the erse cheeks don't get those every week. It's still our defending that's killing us.

Cant argue with that TBH, although I thin it was November when scoring two goals in every game would have got us 10 points. Instead we score zilch.

But yes, I agree, working hard to score a goal must be soul destroying when the defence undo all your hard work.

[Livi La Vida Loca]

1 hour ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

You say that but 2 goals should be enough to get us a win, but our dodgy defence means we're having to score 3 or 4 goals in games, which just isn't realistic every game. You get the odd 3 or 4 goal result, but even the erse cheeks don't get those every week. It's still our defending that's killing us.

Oh it absolutely isn't realistic but you could argue some of the chances we missed were easier to score than the ones we did convert. 

Our defence has been relatively solid since we got promoted and our attack was good enough up until last season when we were the lowest scorers in the league but this was bailed out by a good enough defence.

This season we are joint lowest scorers again which is being highlighted massively because the defence is rubbish. I don't think Martindale has helped our goalscoring with his system but nonetheless goalscoring has been as big a concern as our defence this season. 

[Freedom Farter]

If Martindale has any sense he'll keep the 4-2-3-1 now for all but Old Firm matches. That includes using it for away matches. We had some excellent away performances last season such as the 4-2 at St Johnstone just over a year ago, the match Penrice came of age with the goal he scored that day. Those away results last season were all with the 4-2-3-1 and largely the same players as now. 

No more indulging his shit centre backs he signed last summer and trying to build the team around them. Play a 4-2-3-1 with a higher line. That he got rid of his fastest centre backs best suited to this strategy is tough luck, play it anyway and accept we'll concede goals. There was a freak element to the ridiculously bad goal concessions we've seen in the last two games, it won't continue at that rate.

[ATLIS]

It's time to make a decision I think, sack him now and give us a chance or give him until January next year to get a proper crack at the Championship

[Durnford]

40 minutes ago, Livi La Vida Loca said:

Oh it absolutely isn't realistic but you could argue some of the chances we missed were easier to score than the ones we did convert. 

Our defence has been relatively solid since we got promoted and our attack was good enough up until last season when we were the lowest scorers in the league but this was bailed out by a good enough defence.

This season we are joint lowest scorers again which is being highlighted massively because the defence is rubbish. I don't think Martindale has helped our goalscoring with his system but nonetheless goalscoring has been as big a concern as our defence this season. 

Actually our defence was bl00dy awful in the second half of last season; Nicky Devlin and Fitzwater obviously were eyeing moves elsewhere and it showed. The reason we were comfortably safe was more down to our good performance in the first half of the season; once Obileye got injured it seemed we tried all sorts of defensive combinations without any of them really working.

The funny thing is a lot of people were describing our form at the end of last season as relegation standard; I never dreamed we'd allow it to carry on into this.

[Terry_Tibbs]

A change would be best for both parties. If Martindale takes you down - and he doesn't get it right in the championship - he might never work again as manager. He has clearly peaked at your club. If he leaves now he avoids having a relegation on his CV. Last night's improvement could prove to be another false dawn like the performance against Hearts. It could potentially get embarrassing if you don't hit form soon. It would be best to give a young manager like Dougie Imrie a free hit at the remainder of the season. Just my tuppenceworth with no axe to grind.

Edited January 31 by Terry_Tibbs

[Durnford]

28 minutes ago, Terry_Tibbs said:

A change would be best for both parties. If Martindale takes you down - and he doesn't get it right in the championship - he might never work again as manager. He has clearly peaked at your club. If he leaves now he avoids having a relegation on his CV. Last night's improvement could prove to be another false dawn like the performance against Hearts. It could potentially get embarrassing if you don't hit form soon. It would be best to give a young manager like Dougie Imrie a free hit at the remainder of the season. Just my tuppenceworth with no axe to grind.

TBH the financial side would tend to limit options. If Davie did end up walking then i would suspect Marvin Bartley was the most likely option. Imrie does already know a lot of the staff at Livi but I suspect he feels hes got unfinished business at Cappilow.

[EdinburghLivi]

Apparently missed out on another centre back who is signing for another team in Scotland, either Premiership or Championship

I understand we are in a bad position but I can't help but feel that if Martindale had been less negative about the club and the budget in the press that we would be missing out on fewer players.

Edited January 31 by EdinburghLivi

[Freedom Farter]

2 hours ago, Durnford said:

Actually our defence was bl00dy awful in the second half of last season; Nicky Devlin and Fitzwater obviously were eyeing moves elsewhere and it showed. The reason we were comfortably safe was more down to our good performance in the first half of the season; once Obileye got injured it seemed we tried all sorts of defensive combinations without any of them really working.

The Obileye injury was key. Everything was fine until the 4-1 home defeat to Hibs, Obileye's first match out. If you remember, Fitzwater was pathetic in that match and got himself sent off. Devlin had an off day too but was fine the rest of the season. 

Conceding 4 at home to a non-Old Firm team wasn't something we'd done before under Martindale. I think he looked at that, he also looked at how our best centre back was out for the season, and he panicked about our central defence. 

It was after that Hibs match he moved to the back three and it was a disaster. We lost both the next two games 3-0, away to St Mirren then Motherwell, with our shiny new three centre backs formation.

I think Martindale diagnosed a problem we didn't actually have. Yes, we'd lost our best central defender to injury and the central defence let us down in the Hibs match. All he had to do, though, was drop Fitzwater for De Lucas. Keep the 4-2-3-1, just make a player change.

Go on transfermarkt or wherever and look back on results and formations from last season. It was after that Obileye injury and the subsequent Hibs result that Martindale panicked and started his three centre backs shite. You can pinpoint the start of the downturn to then.

Edited January 31 by Freedom Farter

[mozam76]

5 minutes ago, EdinburghLivi said:

Apparently missed out on another centre back who is signing for another team in Scotland, either Premiership or Championship

I understand we are in a bad position but I can't help but feel that if Martindale had been less negative about the club and the budget in the press that we would be missing out on less players.

Danny Wilson, maybe? He’s off to Queens Park. 

Re your second point, couldn’t agree more. 

[Freedom Farter]

Just to pick up from my last comment above there, as I've a bit more to ramble on that:

Going back to that 3-0 defeat away to St Mirren last April, it was the first time we saw the 3-4-2-1. Kurtis Guthrie started instead of Anderson to widespread surprise. Nouble was shackled to that awful left central attacking mid role with Pittman next to him. Our wide centre backs, it was Boyes and De Lucas that day, just kept knocking balls diagonally central to Guthrie's head, as they'd no doubt been instructed to. It was a disaster and we were walloped 3-0. The whole team didn't know what to do as the gravitational pull of the side was now oriented around our central defence (which had fucking Fitzwater at the heart of it). Just Guthrie was left up there somewhere stood next to a St Mirren centre back.

I think the issue this season was very simple. Martindale stuck too long with an ill-fitting tactical system. One which got our worst players into the team and our best players out of the team (or in a position that ruined them).

Edited January 31 by Freedom Farter

[Livi La Vida Loca]

1 hour ago, EdinburghLivi said:

I understand we are in a bad position but I can't help but feel that if Martindale had been less negative about the club and the budget in the press that we would be missing out on fewer players.

His media comments have been getting progressively worse since the summer. The Primark comment alone will put off just about any player.

[LIVIFOREVER]

4 hours ago, Livi La Vida Loca said:

Oh it absolutely isn't realistic but you could argue some of the chances we missed were easier to score than the ones we did convert. 

Our defence has been relatively solid since we got promoted and our attack was good enough up until last season when we were the lowest scorers in the league but this was bailed out by a good enough defence.

This season we are joint lowest scorers again which is being highlighted massively because the defence is rubbish. I don't think Martindale has helped our goalscoring with his system but nonetheless goalscoring has been as big a concern as our defence this season. 

Defence and attack was reasonably good up till the Motherwell 2-0 win, then everything turned to shit. We conceded soft goals from set plays against Killie and Dundee and Martindale sacrificed our attack to try and shore up that softness in defence. The Tynecastle game was the most defensive i've seen us against any team outside the erse cheeks. That's when Martindale went all in on his messing around with players playing in unfamiliar positions too, which was also due to a lot of injuries.

I'd say there has been an improvement in our play since the home game against Hearts but we're losing too many poorly defended goals still. If we could somehow get that under control we'd be able to put in a bit of fight to stay up. 

Edited January 31 by LIVIFOREVER

[Freedom Farter]

45 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Defence and attack was reasonably good up till the Motherwell 2-0 win, then everything turned to shit. We conceded soft goals from set plays against Killie and Dundee and Martindale sacrificed our attack to try and shore up that softness in defence. The Tynecastle game was the most defensive i've seen us against any team outside the erse cheeks. That's when Martindale went all in on his messing around with players playing in unfamiliar positions too, which was also due to a lot of injuries.

I'd say there has been an improvement in our play since the home game against Hearts but we're losing too many poorly defended goals still. If we could somehow get that under control we'd be able to put in a bit of fight to stay up. 

That Killie match was the first shite result but it had been coming. The two previous away performances at St Johnstone and County were poor and the team was lucky not to lose both those games. An excellent Anderson finish from our only chance in the match stole a draw at County and a penalty got us a draw at St Johnstone. Those were very bad versions of St Johnstone and County too and both sacked their managers shortly after. We looked better in that home match against Motherwell but they had a stinker that day and played the second half with ten men.

Hibs away on the second week of this season is the only genuinely good performance there's been when trying to do the solid, defence-first thing. Then as the scoreline suggests, that wasn't even how things turned out that day.

[EdinburghLivi]

23 minutes ago, Freedom Farter said:

That Killie match was the first shite result but it had been coming. The two previous away performances at St Johnstone and County were poor and the team was lucky not to lose both those games. An excellent Anderson finish from our only chance in the match stole a draw at County and a penalty got us a draw at St Johnstone. Those were very bad versions of St Johnstone and County too and both sacked their managers shortly after. We looked better in that home match against Motherwell but they had a stinker that day and played the second half with ten men.

Hibs away on the second week of this season is the only genuinely good performance there's been when trying to do the solid, defence-first thing. Then as the scoreline suggests, that wasn't even how things turned out that day.

Said on a group chat that I think Martindale was way too complacent with the performances at the start of the season when we were picking up points and even in the games that we narrowly lost. As you say, we were very lucky to get points against County and St Johnstone after putting in pretty poor performances. Motherwell were down to 10 men so that was an asterisk. Dundee were the better team at 11 vs 11. In addition to that, I actually think that we've come out on the fortunate side of officiating this season, certainly compared to last season when a lot of crap decisions went against us.

In my opinion, it felt like Martindale was allowing lower standards that had been the case in previous seasons when we've done well. From the beginning of this season, the budget chat felt very overplayed and may have been the start of a "oh well, we can't expect to compete anyway" despite doing so for the first part of last season with a very similar squad. 

If we go down, the most significant proportion of the blame should fall on Martindale with the off field stuff second and finally the players (with the exception of some absolute duds that should have repaid Martindale's faith with much better performances). I think Martindale probably deserves the season at this point but  I think a lot of other managers we could have appointed in November/December would save this group of players.

[Freedom Farter]

1 hour ago, EdinburghLivi said:

In my opinion, it felt like Martindale was allowing lower standards that had been the case in previous seasons when we've done well. From the beginning of this season, the budget chat felt very overplayed and may have been the start of a "oh well, we can't expect to compete anyway" despite doing so for the first part of last season with a very similar squad. 

Some fans lost the plot last season when Top Six was narrowly missed again. They couldn't handle it and responded by turning on Martindale. I was hearing mental shouts at away games late last season and it carried over to this season. I remember some old duffer muttering "he needs to go" at the Aberdeen opening day game. We know Martindale heard all that too because he'd mention it in interviews. Well my take on the budget thing is that was his attempt to get those fans back onside. He was trying to create a siege mentality again similar to the first couple of seasons after promotion. Before we knew what Top Six was and before folk were demanding 4th place finishes. 

There won't have been a lowering of standards internally. He'd revealed before in club media interviews that while he only ever said "avoid relegation" in press conferences, behind closed doors the aim was Top Six for the two seasons prior to this one. It probably was again at the onset of this season.

 

2 hours ago, EdinburghLivi said:

If we go down, the most significant proportion of the blame should fall on Martindale with the off field stuff second and finally the players (with the exception of some absolute duds that should have repaid Martindale's faith with much better performances). I think Martindale probably deserves the season at this point but  I think a lot of other managers we could have appointed in November/December would save this group of players.

Ideally, Martindale could've stepped back to DoF in late November which was the time of season Gary Holt realised it had gone to shit in 20/21. I assume what stopped this was the lack of a contingency plan. That there was no list of potential candidates to take over. You then have the financial considerations. County took a manager already contracted to an English League Two club. We couldn't have afforded to do that. St Johnstone took Levein who won't have come cheap. Also Adams had twice been County manager before and Levein is very experienced in this league. They're safe choices. We could only have got an unproven or at least less proven option. Such a manager could easily have just got us relegated anyway. If he made a right hash of it and we didn't want to go into next season with him, that's then an outlay on sacking him. He might've demanded to get his own players in this window who might've been shite and needed punting this summer.

I don't think you can do things on the fly when you're a club as diddy as us trying to compete. You need a long term plan to work. That's what happened with Hamilton. Their period of success began with Billy Reid and each subsequent manager had played under him at Hamilton (until Rice, which is where the era ended). Unfortunately all Martindale's potential successors have been poached away before time - Fox, Imrie then Bartley.