Livingston - all the threads merged

[crispy]

Haven’t seen much of Lawal. 

[Freedom Farter]

16 minutes ago, larry the lion said:

Agree with a lot of what is being said here. if this new lad is RWB, what's the chances of seeing Penners and Montano on the pitch same time? Could Penrice just be moved up the wing a bit? He's got some guile about him, I personally think his best is yet to come and in a more attacking position...

Montaño has played centre back three times now. Two starts in the home matches against Rangers and Dundee plus a sub appearance away at Killie. Still a small sample size but he looked assured in the position.

[Freedom Farter]

I thought Brandon was good again on Wednesday night. The cross he put in for Nouble's header early in the match was excellent. Not offering enough offensively was a criticism of Brandon earlier in the season but he's shown clear improvement with that in recent matches.

[Dav nan Gael]

Jamie B just needs consistent game time and he will be an asset,on another point surely Teto is on his way to Scotland next month??

[Livi La Vida Loca]

2 hours ago, Livi said:

but yet there are players in the building that can't even play for the club that are getting paid.

It's my understanding from Callum Carson's comments on the FB forum that Livi are not paying Teto's wages 

There was a clause inserted into the deal that says TS Galaxy pay his wages until he gets a work permit.

It's madness that he's allowed in the country, trains with the team all whilst getting paid by a South African team.

 

Edit to add: The club will likely have incurred some costs for his travel and living costs though.

Edited December 22, 2023 by Livi La Vida Loca

[DiegoDiego]

23 hours ago, Dav nan Gael said:

On another note guys,that naesayer Virgin Guerin has lost his mind over LFC,pleasing beyond anything we could have ever dreamt off  !!

Let him keep the hate coming,we must have been doing something right for to attract his level of paranoia and outright hatred towards us ...........

Be under no doubt,since the move from the east end of Edinburgh we have by and large made our presence felt in the SPFL. 

 

2 League Cup finals,2 Challenge Cup finals. 

Scottish Cup semi-finalists.

Won all 3 lower league's.

European football.

Premiership football.

Downside has been 2 admins,as 1 charlatan after an other has tried their hand wae us.

 

Honestly, you seem as obsessed with his obsession as he seems obsessed with Livi/Meadowbank.

[Freedom Farter]

1 hour ago, crispy said:

Haven’t seen much of Lawal. 

Nigerian youth players are notoriously difficult to judge. The Nigerian league is a lower standard than you'd think given how good Nigerian footballers are. Few nationalities are as willing to try their luck abroad as Nigerian players so the domestic league loses its best players at an extremely high rate. That leaves behind only the mediocre older players which might sometimes make young players left in the league looking better than they are. Selection for the national youth teams is also wrought with issues. Nigeria is a very regionally divided nation so there's probably a lot of regional blind spots and biases where players are being over selected or under selected from. There's corruption affecting selection - agents paying to have their clients selected. 

Going back a decade here but Killie signed this player who had full Nigeria caps and it wasn't a success: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuben_Gabriel

Now, none of this is to say that we haven't unearthed a potential gem in Samson Lawal. My point is just that his seeming pedigree with the U-20 caps and the like is far from a guarantee. Keep expectations low and hopefully we'll be pleasantly surprised. I'm not too concerned by his lack of playing time so far. He's a ball-playing centre mid so Martindale was never going to rush him into a team (and, to be honest, a league) that doesn't have much room for that tactical profile of player. It'll take time for Lawal to learn the football here.

[LIVIFOREVER]

8 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

Honestly, you seem as obsessed with his obsession as he seems obsessed with Livi/Meadowbank.

Don't think that's possible, but yeah, it's best just ignoring him, as much as it's humanly possible anyway, with him popping up on multiple threads with his deranged chat.

[LiviLion]

2 hours ago, Freedom Farter said:

Montaño has played centre back three times now. Two starts in the home matches against Rangers and Dundee plus a sub appearance away at Killie. Still a small sample size but he looked assured in the position.

It's like our own Poundland version of Robertson and Tierney, would be interested in seeing it a bit more. 

1 hour ago, Dav nan Gael said:

Jamie B just needs consistent game time and he will be an asset,on another point surely Teto is on his way to Scotland next month??

I don't think that's going to happen, if he couldn't get a work permit before he's surely not getting one after not playing for anyone since then.

[Livi]

1 hour ago, Livi La Vida Loca said:

It's my understanding from Callum Carson's comments on the FB forum that Livi are not paying Teto's wages 

There was a clause inserted into the deal that says TS Galaxy pay his wages until he gets a work permit.

Edit to add: The club will likely have incurred some costs for his travel and living costs though.

Thats good to know. 

[LIVIFOREVER]

If we balanced the team out properly we'd have a decent attacking set up, and a bit of pace to hit on the counter attack, but i think we'd need to punt/drop Nouble, and that doesn't seem likely. I just think he's getting in the way of us having a better set up. Montano at LWB and  the new signing, or even Brandon over on the right with St Kelly,  Anderson & Penrice in front three, all mobile players with energy to run up the pitch. Nouble slows everything down, he stops to draw players in before making his move, but that give opposition players time to regroup and any quick counter is lost.

                                                      Shamal

                Nottingham               Obileye                      Devlin

Donnellan                   Holt                       Pittman               Montano 

                          St Kelly            Anderson               Penrice                          

 

[Livi]

Seems like a rallying call from the Livi Trust.

[Freedom Farter]

What Hogarth did with his loan retrieval was extremely cuntish but obviously short of criminal. He and his cronies blocking all the investment bids (not McIlvogue, I mean the prior offers from others) is now coming home to roost. Rankine's case against the club is going to be a giant kick to the face if he wins it (I assume he will).

[LIVIFOREVER]

5 minutes ago, Freedom Farter said:

What Hogarth did with his loan retrieval was extremely cuntish but obviously short of criminal. He and his cronies blocking all the investment bids (not McIlvogue, I mean the prior offers from others) is now coming home to roost. Rankine's case against the club is going to be a giant kick to the face if he wins it (I assume he will).

What is it he's hoping to win, sure he's won before, but was told he'd have to wait till the club could pay him without putting itself in financial risk, is he looking to get fully paid in a oner, even when the club can't give it to him, putting it into administration?

Normally Rankine only comes sniffing around when we've had a windfall, like Dykes being sold, or a big cup payout playing the erse cheeks.

Edited December 22, 2023 by LIVIFOREVER

[JD and associates]

Who's idea was it to take the Hogarth issue to court? 6 figures in legal fees for a club of our size - that is absolutely unforgiveable.

[Livi]

26 minutes ago, Freedom Farter said:

What Hogarth did with his loan retrieval was extremely cuntish but obviously short of criminal. He and his cronies blocking all the investment bids (not McIlvogue, I mean the prior offers from others) is now coming home to roost. Rankine's case against the club is going to be a giant kick to the face if he wins it (I assume he will).

You seem bitter? 

[JD and associates]

25 minutes ago, Freedom Farter said:

What Hogarth did with his loan retrieval was extremely cuntish but obviously short of criminal. He and his cronies blocking all the investment bids (not McIlvogue, I mean the prior offers from others) is now coming home to roost. Rankine's case against the club is going to be a giant kick to the face if he wins it (I assume he will).

I'm very much out of the loop on what's happening at director level and haven't been reading this thread so apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere. Does anyone have any insight into what the Rankine court case is worth (I.e. claims and total fees)? For some reason I have £1m in my head but not sure where that's come from.

[Livi]

12 minutes ago, JD and associates said:

Who's idea was it to take the Hogarth issue to court? 6 figures in legal fees for a club of our size - that is absolutely unforgiveable.

The Lord Braid report is damming of those running Livi FC i mean damming and as a football manager it seems Martindale is all over that report as well. 
 

its not having a gripe with the club for the sake of if. It was madness to take something to court only to be questioned by the judge on how bad your actual case is..

 

As it was so bad Hogarth is likely to get enhanced fee settlement given how bad Livi FC's case was - bonkers

[Freedom Farter]

Ward took over a club with a large debt. He got that debt down significantly with the promotions and the sale of Dykes. However, it wasn't cleared completely and he knew staying in the Premiership was the only way to do so. He didn't have the money to both fund a Premiership standard squad plus stay in profit to keep chipping away at the remaining debt. So he tried to sell to somebody who did, in 2020 when the going was good. However, certain other shareholders thought they could get a better offer in future so blocked it. Then came covid, Top Six was twice missed and no more Dykes-like bonanza player sales have materialised. So now the club is a much harder sell which is why McIlvogue was the only offer, a very uninspiring one. Yet it still got blocked anyway by those same board members who've been blocking takeover bids since 2020.

Livi here keeps repeating that Ward hasn't put any money into the club. Good. I don't want the club bankrolled, that's a recipe for disaster. It's likely that what Ward imagined was that whoever took over would begin with a cash injection to clear the debt but no more funding would be required after that, as the sustainable financial model under Ward would be continued with.

Now, its important to note that the sustainable financial model wasn't followed for the two seasons prior to this one. Given no takeover bid was going to be possible due to Hogarth and others blocking it, Ward instead sought to get the debt cleared through increased revenue from on-field success. The team had finished Top Six for two seasons straight. The idea will've been that pushing to get into Europe (finishing fifth) was realistic. I think it was and Ward speculating to accumulate there was a risk, as that strategy always is, but a risk with fairly sound logic. It didn't work. The team lost Top Six in the final minute of the final match to Motherwell, who instead came fifth and earned the revenue from that European participation. Ward gave it one more try, last season, and again the target was missed in the last match (the defeat away to Dundee Utd). Martindale ultimately failed with these on-pitch results and unfortunately wasn't able to fulfil his part of the bargain.

This season it has been a return to the sustainable financial model but relegation is very possible.

[Freedom Farter]

9 minutes ago, Livi said:

You seem bitter? 

Neil Hogarth, Jack Hogarth and their backers are villains as far as the prospects of Livingston FC go. Anyone still denying that at this point is compromised by their personal proximity to those individuals and does not have the interests of Livingston FC as their primary concern.