Livingston - all the threads merged

[LIVIFOREVER]

The tide's really turned on Martindale. 

 

The other side of the coin was Lambert standing with his arms crossed saying fuckall during the game. Think the fans would rather see a vocal manager, with the old putting a rocket up their arse at HT approach.

[CharlieWhisky]

The jumping and shouting used to match our ‘blood and thunder’ approach at times. It’s probably more noticeable now because there’s such a contrast to the limp performances. We’re certainly not seeing much reaction to the shouting, perhaps once we did.

[Livi]

7 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

The tide's really turned on Martindale. 

 

The other side of the coin was Lambert standing with his arms crossed saying fuckall during the game. Think the fans would rather see a vocal manager, with the old putting a rocket up their arse at HT approach.

There is a difference around shouting and supporting the players during the match to actually berating them. Thats why i said "at times" as it's not all berating but that style of management is long gone and been binned in football in the modern day.

[Sortmeout]

9 minutes ago, Livi said:

There is a difference around shouting and supporting the players during the match to actually berating them. Thats why i said "at times" as it's not all berating but that style of management is long gone and been binned in football in the modern day.

Whilst I’m not disagreeing with your point I think whatever sees you winning games is what you feel works. 18 months ago this honesty/directness/passion from DM was what everyone was happiest with.

If Martindale changed absolutely nothing about his style and you won 10 games in a row everyone would love him again. It’s just results that dictate how people are viewed.

[ATLIS]

2 minutes ago, Sortmeout said:

Whilst I’m not disagreeing with your point I think whatever sees you winning games is what you feel works. 18 months ago this honesty/directness/passion from DM was what everyone was happiest with.

If Martindale changed absolutely nothing about his style and you won 10 games in a row everyone would love him again. It’s just results that dictate how people are viewed.

He's not really being direct with the way he's talked about fans in interviews, it's all turned into sly digs and jokes about the fans from him. His tendency to overthink things has been long running as well, Marvin Bartley at LWB in a cup final and now Nouble as a regular at RWB. I'd still rather him with the honesty/directness/passion that he has/had but his inexperience as a manager is costing us.

On Anderson, I think Martindale is taking a bit of frustration out on him that he didn't take the Georgia move. Think they had offered ~£400k-500k for him which at the time is probably enough money for Martindale to go reshape the squad. He was stuck in fantasy land expecting £1m for Nouble as well. Wouldn't be surprised to see him do well at Killie, great finisher if he's confident. Give him service and he'll bag goals.

[Livi]

4 minutes ago, Sortmeout said:

Whilst I’m not disagreeing with your point I think whatever sees you winning games is what you feel works. 18 months ago this honesty/directness/passion from DM was what everyone was happiest with.

If Martindale changed absolutely nothing about his style and you won 10 games in a row everyone would love him again. It’s just results that dictate how people are viewed.

I agree to some extent with you too.
 

I do feel however he has stepped over the line from being honest, emotional call it whatever you want into berating  players at times and i can't fathom how he would think that works with anyone in the modern day life

[LiviLion]

44 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

The tide's really turned on Martindale. 

His trajectory is making me think of Callum Davidson - who should be remembered as the guy who done the unthinkable for St Johnstone but instead he dragged them down and stubbornly stuck to his ways to the point where he isn't exactly loved.

If at the end of last season, after the horrible run that saw us chuck top 6 again, Martindale decided to take a step back into another role with someone else coming in to manage the team; he'd be applauded by Livi fans for all that he's achieved and thanked with us all being delighted we still get to keep him in a DoF style role. The longer it goes on the more toxic it'll get, and you're probably looking already at most fans wanting him gone completely.

Funnily enough I seem to remember in his early days he had a tendency to make unnecessary changes to the team, we'd win and he'd change the team and we'd lose/draw etc. Now though he's stubbornly sticking to a system that was specifically designed for a Nouble-less team while also making sure he starts almost every game. We've got some good players in the squad who should be doing a lot better than they are, but the system doesn't suit the squad at all. Him coming out and blaming players for not scoring good chances would make more sense if we weren't playing a system where we only get 1-2 good chances per game.

His latest nonsense has genuinely pissed me off, quotes like "There’s no doubt Joel’s form needs to improve, but I think in being a supporter, I would rather support the player than boo the player. That’s just my opinion" and "I just know if I was a fan I’d want to try and help the player. But it’s modern-day society" - fine for him to publicly berate players after a game but god forbid a paying supporter voices their frustration.

Biggest part for me is that, while we all expect Nouble to do better, it's pretty clear that a big reason for his form this season is how Martindale plays him - the booing and jeers might have been when Nouble was subbed, but it was purely frustration at Martindale. He's a man in denial.

[Freedom Farter]

24 minutes ago, LiviLion said:

If at the end of last season, after the horrible run that saw us chuck top 6 again, Martindale decided to take a step back into another role with someone else coming in to manage the team; he'd be applauded by Livi fans for all that he's achieved and thanked with us all being delighted we still get to keep him in a DoF style role.

He was probably planning that for Bartley but Bartley fucked off.

[LIVIFOREVER]

1 hour ago, Sortmeout said:

Whilst I’m not disagreeing with your point I think whatever sees you winning games is what you feel works. 18 months ago this honesty/directness/passion from DM was what everyone was happiest with.

If Martindale changed absolutely nothing about his style and you won 10 games in a row everyone would love him again. It’s just results that dictate how people are viewed.

Yep and fans are fickle as f**k too. Last few seasons when we hit a bad patch there has been calls for Martindale to go, one such season we finished 5th, then 6th the following season. Some fans have been waiting for a shite run like this to really garner support though, the really loud toxic ones, i still hope we win a few games from our next 4 home games coming up, and he turns it around, but my confidence in it happening isn't high. He's really pissing me off just now but i'm hanging by my last thread hoping he comes good.

[Freedom Farter]

4 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Yep and fans are fickle as f**k too. Last few seasons when we hit a bad patch there has been calls for Martindale to go, one such season we finished 5th, then 6th the following season. Some fans have been waiting for a shite run like this to really garner support though, the really loud toxic ones, i still hope we win a few games from our next 4 home games coming up, and he turns it around, but my confidence in it happening isn't high. He's really pissing me off just now but i'm hanging by my last thread hoping he comes good.

The guy at the St Mirren away match last season who I mentioned above, that was suspicious. I don't believe that was just due to how the match was going that day. There's definitely been a wee fifth column thing going on and we've seen indications of it in this thread. So the worst of the chimp-outs in the stands are probably coming from them. There's only a thousand of us fans at games so a small group of pals, cocky middle aged men with the self-importance to make themselves heard can easily create a false sense of consensus and push others in that direction.

A few months back Martindale was blocked from taking up a better job. The same folk who denied him that are not going to now sack him. So we're stuck with him and just have to hope he stops getting it wrong and starts getting it right. The chances of that are slim, though. It's not impossible he'll step upstairs and even as soon as after the Hearts match if we lose it and this Motherwell game. It also wouldn't definitely be Brian Rice taking over if that happened. There'll be a list of contingency options like how they had Gary Holt in mind if it went tits up with Kenny Miller. 

[Livi]

8 hours ago, Freedom Farter said:

There's only a thousand of us fans at games so a small group of pals, cocky middle aged men with the self-importance to make themselves heard can easily create a false sense of consensus and push others in that direction.

There is a bit of irony in there is there not? 

8 hours ago, Freedom Farter said:

A few months back Martindale was blocked from taking up a better job. 

Seriously you think Martindale was blocked from moving really.  Who on this forum really believes Martindale was blocked from moving to St Johnstone. I think many seen it as a publicity stunt. 
 

Who really took the decision Martindale and Ward? Baycup had no legal standing in the club.

[Freedom Farter]

9 minutes ago, Livi said:

There is a bit of irony in there is there not? 

Seriously you think Martindale was blocked from moving really.  Who on this forum really believes Martindale was blocked from moving to St Johnstone. I think many seen it as a publicity stunt. 
 

Who really took the decision Martindale and Ward? Baycup had no legal standing in the club.

Yes, St Johnstone Football Club are a PR company who Martindale hired to set up a publicity stunt. Many seen this.

[Livi]

1 hour ago, Freedom Farter said:

Yes, St Johnstone Football Club are a PR company who Martindale hired to set up a publicity stunt. Many seen this.

 

Lets not blame St Johnstone.  
 

How can someone with no contract be blocked. Who would block Martindale its all over the forums that he does everything down at the club? 

 

Edited December 29, 2023 by Livi

[mozam76]

13 hours ago, Livi said:

A few times i've really wondered why the player hasn't just walked given how Martindale has been berated them 

Think it’s only fair that I make clear why I deleted my post. Whilst I’ve got zero time for his ranting etc (the incident at Stenny and countless examples of him going at it in our own home dressing room, so loud you can hear it in the stand), he’s proven on other occasions that he gets it right. I’m thinking of the help he gave Max Stryjeck, and the compassion with which he dealt with Dan Barden.

I have major misgivings over the hold he has on our club and, in all honesty, he’s never really won me over due to his past. That’s just me though, and I’m aware that it’s probably an unpopular opinion. Either way, to call him nothing but a bully was wrong. 

Edited December 29, 2023 by mozam76

[Valentino Bolognese]

45 minutes ago, Livi said:

 

Lets not blame St Johnstone.  
 

How can someone with no contract be blocked. Who would block Martindale its all over the forums that he does everything down at the club? 

 

Said it at the time that it was an extremely poor maangement decision not to let him speak to us. If we take what was in the press at face value, the board used his loyalty to the club, which he feels he owes a debt of gratitude to, to stop him talking to another potential employer even when he's out of contract. I can't see any way it works out well to have a manger in charge of the team that feels trapped. Particualry if he feels his time with Livi has run its course, and he wants to test himself somewhere else. If things go well, badly or indifferently after that there's no good outcome for DM's career.

FWIW I don't think he'd have got the job with us, particularly not if CL was also in the running, but that's not really the point. From the outside looking in it was where I started to notice a change in his demeanour, Livi fans may say it's been a longer term thing.

[Livi]

50 minutes ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

Said it at the time that it was an extremely poor maangement decision not to let him speak to us. If we take what was in the press at face value, the board used his loyalty to the club, which he feels he owes a debt of gratitude to, to stop him talking 

You see for someone looking from outside the club to the situation i would say 9 times out of 10 that would more or likely be the situation.

 

The point of my post is DM is the board with John Ward so that makes it a little harder to swallow.

 

It also fair to  assume DM would never have got to run St Johnstone like he does Livingston FC. 

[Livi]

1 hour ago, mozam76 said:

Think it’s only fair that I make clear why I deleted my post. 

Fair play. Thats why i said at times

[Livi La Vida Loca]

"That first half was probably one of the worst I've seen since I've been in at Livingston. That doesn't come down to tactics, formations or game plans, that comes down to individuals not taking responsibility and doing their jobs properly." 

Well that's not very constructive or nice is it......

He's well and truly done for me now. 

[East Calder Lion]

1 minute ago, Livi La Vida Loca said:

"That first half was probably one of the worst I've seen since I've been in at Livingston. That doesn't come down to tactics, formations or game plans, that comes down to individuals not taking responsibility and doing their jobs properly." 

Well that's not very constructive or nice is it......

He's well and truly done for me now. 

Should have been jettisoned ages ago.

Don't want him anywhere near the club.  We need a completely fresh approach. 

[Freedom Farter]

5 minutes ago, Livi La Vida Loca said:

"That first half was probably one of the worst I've seen since I've been in at Livingston. That doesn't come down to tactics, formations or game plans, that comes down to individuals not taking responsibility and doing their jobs properly." 

Well that's not very constructive or nice is it......

He's well and truly done for me now. 

Aye, that's nonsense. It's all to do with how you set the team up and who you put in that team.