Livi v Motherwell 21/8

[Gianfranco]

We need to move to the 4231 formation.

[ATLIS]

7 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Lamie has genuinely been better than Gallagher for us since the start of the 2020/21 season, and I don't rate Lamie particularly highly.

Mental. Lamie and Crawford going to Motherwell was just, so so weird. Even at the time it was clear they were average mid table Championship players at best.

[capt_oats]

14 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

Mental. Lamie and Crawford going to Motherwell was just, so so weird. Even at the time it was clear they were average mid table Championship players at best.

In fairness I don't think either signing for us was particularly weird. They were brought in as squad filler. If there's one thing that Robinson loved it was padding out a squad with players he thought he could "improve" or at the very least could "do a job" now and again over the course of a season.

Ironically, as @YassinMoutaouakil says, it's Alexander who seems to have been able to get more out of Lamie than Robinson ever could.

What fucked us was that we ended up having to play them a lot more than intended because of various injuries.

Edited August 17, 2021 by capt_oats

[Yorky]

3 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

In fairness I don't think either signing for us was particularly weird. They were brought in as squad filler. If there's one thing that Robinson loved it was padding out a squad with players he thought he could "improve" or at the very least could "do a job" now and again over the course of a season.

What fucked us was that we ended up having to play them a lot more than intended because of various injuries.

Yes I don’t think either player came as as first choice picks but last seasons injuries were crazy levels. I’m baffled by the extension for Crawford but to be fair to Lamie he’s not been close to the worst player in many games.

[capt_oats]

8 minutes ago, Yorky said:

Yes I don’t think either player came as as first choice picks but last seasons injuries were crazy levels. I’m baffled by the extension for Crawford but to be fair to Lamie he’s not been close to the worst player in many games.

I've mentioned it on our thread but I genuinely think Crawford's extension was to give us some continuity over the summer. The fact the we're a fortnight from the end of the window and we're still 3 or 4 short and the whole notion that we weren't diving in to signings means that had we not given him an extension then we'd have had another player to recruit and conceivably been even shorter in midfield when the group stages started than we were and potentially even more heads would have exploded.

The fact that he's not had a minute since the Airdrie debacle (and we're still in the market for players) makes me think we might see him loaned out by the end of the window if there's a taker and depending on who we bring in.

Edited August 17, 2021 by capt_oats

['WellDel]

3 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

In fairness I don't think either signing for us was particularly weird. They were brought in as squad filler. If there's one thing that Robinson loved it was padding out a squad with players he thought he could "improve" or at the very least could "do a job" now and again over the course of a season.

What fucked us was that we ended up having to play them a lot more than intended because of various injuries.

This is the thing. Asking someone who is real Scotish Prem quality to come to us as a bench option is a hard, hard sell. Therefore, as you say, bringing someone who's real level is one below, who is willing to be that guy and hoping they can bring their 'A' game any time you need to drop them in is your next best option.

Unfortunately circumstances dictated that they both ended up with far more minutes than anyone could ever have anticipated, and more often than not failed to bring that 'A' game to the table.

[LIVIFOREVER]

Lawless had a blinding season for us as an out and out winger, scored 11 goals (most were pens but never missed any) and assisted in a lot of Dykes goals. A bit less successful when we played him as a wingback the prev season.

 

Lamie isn't as bad as Atlis makes out, had some decent games for us, esp against Sevco. Is good in the air when he's not giving us a hand ball pen against you. Decent enough squad player for us though, mostly playing as a LB/LWB.

[LIVIFOREVER]

Free ticket giveaway for Motherwell game. - Livingston FC

 

Nice gesture from Livi.

 

Quote

We’ve also offered 100 free kids tickets to Motherwell FC for this one too, hopefully helping allow some additional ‘Well supporting youngsters the chance to come along on Saturday and enjoy watch the game too…

BIB, aye very good.

[Busta Nut]

3 hours ago, capt_oats said:

 

Liam Kelly's Twitter TL also marks him out as OFTW but the less said about that the better given we've made him vice-fucking-captain.

What've I missed

11 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Free ticket giveaway for Motherwell game. - Livingston FC

 

Nice gesture from Livi.

 

You must be planning on making enough money aff yer millionaires yer expecting to pay 25 fucking quid for entry.

[LIVIFOREVER]

3 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

What've I missed

You must be planning on making enough money aff yer millionaires yer expecting to pay 25 fucking quid for entry.

I blame Brexit.

[Marinello]

8 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Lamie has genuinely been better than Gallagher for us since the start of the 2020/21 season, and I don't rate Lamie particularly highly.

Appreciate we can have different opinions but I suspect you have erased from your memory the performances of Lamie in the first half of last season. Compare that to Dec who in the same period held the defence together .

 

2 nd half of season Lamie definitely improved ( aided by our defence based mgt team) but still imho never came near Dec when he ' played'.

 

All immaterial now but for all his improvement Lamie should never be more than a back up----- indeed I'm sure this was the role Robinson saw for him when he signed.

 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

4 hours ago, Marinello said:

Appreciate we can have different opinions but I suspect you have erased from your memory the performances of Lamie in the first half of last season. Compare that to Dec who in the same period held the defence together .

 

2 nd half of season Lamie definitely improved ( aided by our defence based mgt team) but still imho never came near Dec when he ' played'.

 

All immaterial now but for all his improvement Lamie should never be more than a back up----- indeed I'm sure this was the role Robinson saw for him when he signed.

 

Gallagher is a much much better footballer don't get me wrong, but if you look at both of their 20/21 seasons for us- Gallagher being mediocre compared to his previously high standards and then disappearing for the whole of March for some reason Vs Lamie being a bombscare to begin with and eventually verging on competent- I'd say Lamie contributed more over the course of the season.

It is semantics really in the end though, and aye he's still not good enough to be playing 38 games for anyone in this league.

[Yorky]

4 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Gallagher is a much much better footballer don't get me wrong, but if you look at both of their 20/21 seasons for us- Gallagher being mediocre compared to his previously high standards and then disappearing for the whole of March for some reason Vs Lamie being a bombscare to begin with and eventually verging on competent- I'd say Lamie contributed more over the course of the season.

It is semantics really in the end though, and aye he's still not good enough to be playing 38 games for anyone in this league.

I think we’re just about all on the same page with Lamie. He’s a very competent back up .

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

15 hours ago, Gianfranco said:

We need to move to the 4231 formation.

It certainly was the catalyst for us coming back against QOTS and St. Johnstone - you would like to think Alexander has taken note of that. Our current formation just seems to have the midfield deep and the striker isolated.

[capt_oats]

10 hours ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Gallagher is a much much better footballer don't get me wrong, but if you look at both of their 20/21 seasons for us- Gallagher being mediocre compared to his previously high standards and then disappearing for the whole of March for some reason Vs Lamie being a bombscare to begin with and eventually verging on competent- I'd say Lamie contributed more over the course of the season.

It is semantics really in the end though, and aye he's still not good enough to be playing 38 games for anyone in this league.

Aye, I don't think anyone's actually trying to make an argument that Lamie's a better player than Gallagher but to me Gallagher set the tone for his 20/21 season in the opening game against County when he needlessly gave away that pen. He followed it up with selling the jerseys against Hapoel by rugby tackling the boy in the penalty box and getting himself sent off at a point where we were still only 1-0 down - the fact he was our captain only compounds it.

I'm not going to, but (IMO) you can pick apart Gallagher's season under two different managers and there are glaring mistakes and lapses in concentration that are every bit as bad as the ones Lamie gets crucified for. Even under Alexander you saw Gallagher go full Shane Duffy against County and once his toys were back in his pram and the gun had been removed from his head he was swinging and missing at clearances (in his first game back off the bench against HIbs).

That's not to say there weren't games where he was decent, good even but in terms of consistency I'd err on the side that Lamie probably played closer to his ceiling over the course of the season than Gallagher did.

It's academic now given he's an Aberdeen player and I've not actually seen how he fared against Raith at the weekend but I'm interested to see how he adapts at Pittodrie given that I'd imagine Aberdeen fans probably have higher expectations of him. Either way, I don't think anyone's actively claiming that Ricki Lamie should be starting 38 games a season for us. The link with big Sondre the other day suggests that Alexander is of a similar view.

Edited August 18, 2021 by capt_oats

[Durnford]

Lawless joined us as a squad player but, with a string of good performances, developed into a regular starter. He was particularly good at dead ball and penalties but struggles with tracking back to defend.

Rarely did he manage to see out a match, at best he would last 80 minutes but, more often, was substituted after about 70.

I was actually surprised when we signed him initially because he hardly distinguished himself in the play-off for Thistle; but he settled in well with the squad at the time.  Often though his comments, particularly when talking about Motherwell, implied that he felt there was still unfinished business there - as far as I understand he felt he never really got much of a chance the first time around?

[capt_oats]

1 hour ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

It certainly was the catalyst for us coming back against QOTS and St. Johnstone - you would like to think Alexander has taken note of that. Our current formation just seems to have the midfield deep and the striker isolated.

I think the 4231 is an interesting one not least because it's a shape we've not really used (effectively at least) since the McCall era.

On the face of it, it solves a few issues. If we play Watt as the #10 it gets him into the area of the park he wants to be and gets him closer to Van Veen. While, at the moment, we probably don't have the midfield to make the 433 work - Donnelly and Slattery as the two sitters seems fine.

The main issue I'd see with the 4231 is that we don't seem to have any players around the squad who are obvious starters in the wide area. We've been talking about the deficiencies in Lawleff's game over the past few pages and Woolery doesn't seem like an obvious winger...more an 'across the front 3' forward. Same with Shields.

I mean, it's not an insurmountable problem and right now it feels like a more natural or balanced shape than the 433.

Edited August 18, 2021 by capt_oats

[Desp]

I wonder if Alexander will be tempted to go back to the 3-4-3/3-5-2 he tried out against Annan.  It could solve a few issues, i.e there's not really an effective winger in the squad.  It takes away a third midfielder, considering Maguire/O'Hara/Crawford all remain unconvincing.  Having big Ojala at the back to manage Mugabi & Lamie through a game could be a benefit as well, much like when Hartley excelled in the back three.

Having Watt & van Veen playing off a pacey frontman could be an interesting watch as well. 

                                    Kelly

                   Mugabi  Ojala  Lamie

      O'Donnell  Slattery  Donnelly  Carroll

                                   Watt

                   van Veen  Sheilds/Woolery

[capt_oats]

14 minutes ago, Desp said:

I wonder if Alexander will be tempted to go back to the 3-4-3/3-5-2 he tried out against Annan.  It could solve a few issues, i.e there's not really an effective winger in the squad.  It takes away a third midfielder, considering Maguire/O'Hara/Crawford all remain unconvincing.  Having big Ojala at the back to manage Mugabi & Lamie through a game could be a benefit as well, much like when Hartley excelled in the back three.

Having Watt & van Veen playing off a pacey frontman could be an interesting watch as well. 

                                    Kelly

                   Mugabi  Ojala  Lamie

      O'Donnell  Slattery  Donnelly  Carroll

                                   Watt

                   van Veen  Sheilds/Woolery

There's an argument that that probably gets more out of SOD as well. with the 343/352 against Annan, the 4231 that seems to have been our Plan B and the 433 it feels like Alexander's been bouncing things around to see what, if anything, works.

Based on the players we have available that 343/352 is probably the one with most players in their natural positions.

Edited August 18, 2021 by capt_oats

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

20 minutes ago, Durnford said:

Lawless joined us as a squad player but, with a string of good performances, developed into a regular starter. He was particularly good at dead ball and penalties but struggles with tracking back to defend.

Rarely did he manage to see out a match, at best he would last 80 minutes but, more often, was substituted after about 70.

I was actually surprised when we signed him initially because he hardly distinguished himself in the play-off for Thistle; but he settled in well with the squad at the time.  Often though his comments, particularly when talking about Motherwell, implied that he felt there was still unfinished business there - as far as I understand he felt he never really got much of a chance the first time around?

He actually scored on his debut against Clyde in a 4-0 league cup win but only appeared once more after that, off the bench against Queen's Park in the Scottish Cup.

In fairness, at the time we were playing Nicky Law or Jamie Murphy on the left and Chris Humphrey on the right and having one of our best seasons in recent history, so it wasn't an easy task to break into the team.