The race for top 6 St Mirren v Livi 01/04/2023

[buddie06smfc]

12 hours ago, FTOF said:

It was more to with Gogic being back in midfield rather than Shaugnessy being back in defence IMO. Although Shaugnessy is a better CH than Gogic IMO and did improve the defence. Although I thought both he and Dunne struggled to cope with Guthrie and Nouble, who are murder to play against.

If Gallagher is fully fit next week he will start as he's our best centre half.

We really missed O'Hara after the break which helped Livingston no end.

I thought Watt looked more up to speed and took his goal with a great deal of composure.

Baccus was excellent in the first half, but faded in the second. Understandable given his and Strain's lengthy journey home.

Small looking more up to speed too and had some great runs.

All in all a good day.

 

I would agree with that entirely. I thought that was Watt's best game for us and he looks a lot fitter. He chased far more yesterday than he has done previously. I thought Dunne got away with a lot of similar fouls which we bemoan Main is usually on the end of. He seemed far more interested in wrestling the full match. No messing about on the ball at least. 

[Guest]

I'd rather that Martindale had continued with the 4-2-3-1 but he didn't. There was at least logic to the 5-3-2. Three centre backs gives extra insurance against St Mirren's dangerous front two plus at least one of their centre mids, normally Baccus, often ends up in the box so it gives you an extra centre back for dealing with that. A front two gives Nouble the maximum freedom, allowing him to play as a left sided second striker, his best position, and frees him of defensive duties. Guthrie was to play as a back to goal, central target man and Pittman was supposed to be bursting beyond him when longer passes were knocked into him (Guthrie) from our wide centre backs. Long passes from the defensive line straight into the forward line like that, not trying to build up through our midfield, was because St Mirren's 3 centre mids press so well, win the ball so frequently then look to immediately attack you from that, catching you out of your defensive shape.

So the shape and strategy could've worked but I think player selection was wrong. De Lucas should've been central and Fitzwater right in the centre back arrangement. De Lucas was completely caught out by the movement of both Watt and especially Main. Having him central would've had him less often directly up against one of those two strikers and instead he could've focused more on just intercepting crosses and sweeping through passes, which would've better suited him. The wide centre backs in a three tend to do the bulk of the marking against a front two so that should've been Boyes and Fitzwater not Boyes and De Lucas.

Montano should've started not Penrice. Dribbling ability, the potential to cover ground in possession of the ball, is very important in that wing back position because there's not a wide attacker ahead of them to play the ball into. Montano excels at dribbling over distance while its not Penrice's game.

Anderson should've started not Guthrie. Anderson's back to goal, hold up play is excellent and unlike Guthrie, he offers you great depth in attack because he can chase through balls much better. Anderson in the past has assisted goals for Pittman bursting beyond him which was exactly the tactic first half yesterday. Martindale said Anderson hasn't "hit the heights" in recent matches. I disagree. He hasn't scored, which is different. His performance level has been as high as in earlier matches when he did score he's just not had chances in recent matches.

Positives are Montano, Stephen Kelly and Omeonga all had strong second half substitute showings. Nouble played well and was unlucky not to score.

 

[LIVIFOREVER]

51 minutes ago, FreedomFarter said:

I'd rather that Martindale had continued with the 4-2-3-1 but he didn't. There was at least logic to the 5-3-2. Three centre backs gives extra insurance against St Mirren's dangerous front two plus at least one of their centre mids, normally Baccus, often ends up in the box so it gives you an extra centre back for dealing with that. A front two gives Nouble the maximum freedom, allowing him to play as a left sided second striker, his best position, and frees him of defensive duties. Guthrie was to play as a back to goal, central target man and Pittman was supposed to be bursting beyond him when longer passes were knocked into him (Guthrie) from our wide centre backs. Long passes from the defensive line straight into the forward line like that, not trying to build up through our midfield, was because St Mirren's 3 centre mids press so well, win the ball so frequently then look to immediately attack you from that, catching you out of your defensive shape.

So the shape and strategy could've worked but I think player selection was wrong. De Lucas should've been central and Fitzwater right in the centre back arrangement. De Lucas was completely caught out by the movement of both Watt and especially Main. Having him central would've had him less often directly up against one of those two strikers and instead he could've focused more on just intercepting crosses and sweeping through passes, which would've better suited him. The wide centre backs in a three tend to do the bulk of the marking against a front two so that should've been Boyes and Fitzwater not Boyes and De Lucas.

Montano should've started not Penrice. Dribbling ability, the potential to cover ground in possession of the ball, is very important in that wing back position because there's not a wide attacker ahead of them to play the ball into. Montano excels at dribbling over distance while its not Penrice's game.

Anderson should've started not Guthrie. Anderson's back to goal, hold up play is excellent and unlike Guthrie, he offers you great depth in attack because he can chase through balls much better. Anderson in the past has assisted goals for Pittman bursting beyond him which was exactly the tactic first half yesterday. Martindale said Anderson hasn't "hit the heights" in recent matches. I disagree. He hasn't scored, which is different. His performance level has been as high as in earlier matches when he did score he's just not had chances in recent matches.

Positives are Montano, Stephen Kelly and Omeonga all had strong second half substitute showings. Nouble played well and was unlucky not to score.

 

And he thinks Guthrie has, and was a better option, jeezo.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

And he thinks Guthrie has, and was a better option, jeezo.

Sure, then the other reason he gave for dropping Anderson was that Guthrie adds height for defensive set pieces. Yet that could've been gained elsewhere in the team such as selecting Montaño - excellent in the air - instead of Penrice.

[mozam76]

Playing devils advocate ever so slightly, an early concession will knock the stuffing out of any team. 

My issue is though, and it always is, this constant need from Martindale to overthink things. For Stephen Kelly, Montano and Anderson to not start that game is criminal. Genuine question - how often have I read post game comments from Martindale where he says “that’s on me, I got that wrong”? I suppose being boring and playing your best players/best formation every week isn’t what gets you on Open PLZ Goal.

I get that Martindale knows more about the game than I ever will, but f**k me his decisions enrage me sometimes. 

Edited April 2, 2023 by mozam76
Spelling

[Arch Stanton]

9 hours ago, Captain_Sensible said:

Thanks for the summary 

Couldn’t make it today. My kids couldn’t make it either. Couldn’t even find takers for the season tickets. 

Had to wade through a pile of shite to read a summary that was similar to my dads thoughts and similar to my Livi supporting mate’s  view on the game 

Then again, I think all of you are massive bellends, especially you  @FTOF

We won so that’s all matters!!

Any winners at the gee gees?

[Guest]

47 minutes ago, mozam76 said:

Playing devils advocate ever so slightly, an early concession will knock the stuffing out of any team. 

My issue is though, and it always is, this constant need from Martindale to overthink things. For Stephen Kelly, Montano and Anderson to not start that game is criminal. Genuine question - how often have I read post game comments from Martindale where he says “that’s on me, I got that wrong”? I suppose being boring and playing your best players/best formation every week isn’t what gets you on Open PLZ Goal.

I get that Martindale knows more about the game than I ever will, but f**k me his decisions enrage me sometimes. 

Only two clear goalscoring chances were conceded in that first half, Watt's goal and Main's one on one. Both penalty concessions were unforced errors. The performance wasn't as bad as the scoreline suggested.

If you listen to Martindale's match reviews on the Livi Youtube channel, he does sometimes say his choices might've been wrong. He can't throw his players under the bus so he can't admit to selection errors but I've heard him say he might've gotten the formation or strategy wrong. 

His being interviewed by PLZ Soccer or Open Goal I see as a good thing because in promoting himself he's promoting the club. Brand Martindale is entirely tied to Livingston FC. Also, he was doing PLZ Soccer a favour there in return for how well they treat Livi. They're only a small budget operation and are one of the very few outlets that bother regularly sending a reporter to Livi. Open Goal is different, they're much bigger budget.

Martindale's changing up the formation and strategy does disappoint me sometimes. Not often, though, and I at least always recognise the thinking behind his changes. Where I disagree with him a bit more is on player selection. For me, he's too quick to drop players. I always want to see our best players starting matches unless their form has been genuinely awful. Too often it only takes a single slightly underwhelming performance and they're then dropped for the next match.

[GAD]

13 hours ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

 

 

Martindale seems to be the only one not seeing that line up was an absolute shitshow. Leaving Bruce on the bench till 71 mins was just taking the piss too.

Can only guess he somehow thought that starting XI and formation would get us a draw, sure as feck wasn't going for a win with it anyway, even taking out the 2 pens we were always losing today going into this game shitting the bed trying not to lose.

 

What's most frustrating is him not making drastic changes at HT and ripping up that starting formation, going back to 4 at the back and getting some ballers on, like Kelly, Bradley and Anderson, with Omeonga for grit chasing everything down in midfield, and Montano for Penrice, who was having a mare.

St Mirren had us beaten all over the pitch first half, we were fortunate only being 3 goals down at HT, although we also could've pulled one back with the ball hitting the bar and post. We got pressed and continually lost possession in dangerous areas, we just hadn't the players on the pitch to deal with the St Mirren intensity. Hoofing it up to Guthrie and Nouble was also a recipe for disaster, that's just not how we play our best stuff, in fact our best move first half came from us playing it up the wing and into the box, on the deck with passing football. 

 

2nd half Montano and Omeonga made a difference, and we had 2 good early chances, one of those needed to go in for us to get back in the game and put some pressure on St Mirren, but it just wasn't going to happen, Nouble got through on goal later with another great chance but completely fluffed it. Actually thought Guthrie had a decent game, but with Anderson sitting on the bench we didn't have anyone up there to get onto anything, Pitts was having to run through and try to play as a striker, but he isn't Bruce Anderson.

Looking good for St Mirren now with Hibs being gubbed by Motherwell, and moving up to 5th, Hearts losing to Killie too, so they have nothing to fear going to Tynecastle and going for a result there. I think we need to beat Motherwell next week and hope results elsewhere go our way, but our record against them is worse than it is against St Mirren away, so isn't looking good for us now. Just hope Martindale gets his head straight and sets up properly this time, and ffs get Bruce and Joel starting together up front.

Its funny how folk see it, because I actually thought Livi spent too much time fannying around with the ball on the deck and looked far more dangerous when they just hammered it up the middle as quickly as they could, because whilst I thought the saints back three did about as well as could be expected against the two big Livi strikers, they were mostly coming off second best.

To be honest, it was never a 3-0 game. Stupid individual errors killed Livi in the first half and you are never coming back from that against a team like the current St Mirren team.

[Menga Bus]

I get that individual errors lead to two goals but deary me that first half was 3-0 going on 5 or 6. There was constant pressure and more errors waiting to happen. An offside goal, Curtis main thinking he’s some silky striker when he should’ve smashed it past shamal. Think people are lying to themselves if they say it wasn’t actually that bad. We barely got out our own half, humped the ball long at every opportunity, misplaced a ridiculous amount of passes. At 2-0 everyone in the stands could see it was going to get worse, something the manager was clearly blind to. People saying Nouble was unlucky with his chances, he’s not a striker so why on earth are we playing him there, he has some of the worst finishing from any forward in the squad, missed 2 of the best chances in the full match. Could rant about any player yesterday, but it’s really down to the manager and his system that was wrong.

If anyone thinks it’s just about being unlucky, 0 wins from our last 18 games against st mirren and motherwell, here we go again next week.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Menga Bus

[LIVIFOREVER]

Nouble is our top scorer this season isn't he?

 

His finishing has def improved, esp against Sevco and Hibs, he stuck away 3 very good goals in those games, also scored the opener against County in our last game.

It has been a c**t of a season for him and Anderson with injuries, this is the first time we've had both fully fit, which made leaving Anderson out all the more frustrating. 

In the last game there Anderson was coming back from injury, and as he had already come back from an earlier injury, only to get injured again, Martindale was taking it extra careful easing him back into the team. Nouble then got injured during the WC break, and again Martindale eased him back in, and it took ages before he was back playing. But both have had a few games now and we really need them to be playing from the start of games, when Bruce isn't scoring he's helping Nouble get chances, he does a power of work pressing defenders off the ball and making runs to get the ball, which helps Nouble a great deal too.

Guthrie is a big awkward looking player, no finesse, but the shear chaos he causes could help Anderson get on the ball and through on goal, so if we have to play Guthrie from the start why not have him in a front 3 with Nouble and Anderson, instead of trying to get Pittman to be the player running through trying to collect Guthrie's lay offs. Pitts just isn't the player he was getting us goals now, 5 seasons ago he was very good at it but not so much since we've been promoted. Kelly and Bradley have shown more as goal threats from midfield and both were on the bench.

So basically we had Nouble who's hot and cold scoring goals, Guthrie who isn't looking like scoring at all, Pitts who has lost all signs of being a goal threat, and Shinnie who scores every blue moon. Def was trying to nullify St Mirren with that starting line up, trying not to lose and maybe nicking a win. The second we concede from the penalty spot it was knackered and needed to change.

[LIVIFOREVER]

Don't think it has been mentioned, but i think we may have got away with at least de Lucas hand ball, if this had been played before the International break, but the blowback the SFA got from the pre IB fixtures VAR shambles, prob put VAR under a lot of pressure giving hand ball decisions again. The length of time they took on de Lucas must've been debating whether it met the criteria or not, but once Beaton was sent to the monitor you knew it was being given.

Edited April 2, 2023 by LIVIFOREVER

[Arch Stanton]

21 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Don't think it has been mentioned, but i think we may have got away with at least de Lucas hand ball, if this had been played before the International break, but the blowback the SFA got from the pre IB fixtures VAR shambles, prob put VAR under a lot of pressure giving hand ball decisions again. The length of time they took on de Lucas must've been debating whether it met the criteria or not, but once Beaton was sent to the monitor you knew it was being given.

The discussion on Sportscene was that VAR was looking at both a possible offside and foul in the build up to the handball, hence the delay.

The handball itself was clear as day.

[LIVIFOREVER]

4 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

The discussion on Sportscene was that VAR was looking at both a possible offside and foul in the build up to the handball, hence the delay.

The handball itself was clear as day.

Ah right, still shouldn't be taking 5 minutes to decide that either though, and sportscene aren't great for knowing exactly what's going on either, they were clueless as to why we were getting a free kick against County when our keeper came out his box and clattered into a County player, and made a big thing of it, not knowing we'd got an offside decision before the foul.

Haven't brought myself to watch sportscene yet, but sitting behind the goals it looked like de Lucas was bringing his arm back trying to get it out the way when it hit him there, you saw far worse not being given pre International break. To start with they were handing hand ball pens out like sweeties though, just wondering because they made a monumental c**t of a few VAR calls in the last set of fixtures if they're now giving every hand ball as a pen again.

[GAD]

I think the handball penalties were pretty clear tbh. The first one was looked pretty blatant at the time and Beaton should have really given it straight away.

[Biscuits]

1 hour ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

Ah right, still shouldn't be taking 5 minutes to decide that either though, and sportscene aren't great for knowing exactly what's going on either, they were clueless as to why we were getting a free kick against County when our keeper came out his box and clattered into a County player, and made a big thing of it, not knowing we'd got an offside decision before the foul.

Haven't brought myself to watch sportscene yet, but sitting behind the goals it looked like de Lucas was bringing his arm back trying to get it out the way when it hit him there, you saw far worse not being given pre International break. To start with they were handing hand ball pens out like sweeties though, just wondering because they made a monumental c**t of a few VAR calls in the last set of fixtures if they're now giving every hand ball as a pen again.

Think you should maybe bring yourself to watch Sportscene 

[Monkey socks]

From my angle behind the goals I thought they were 2 penalties, pulling arm away or not. I certainly would be screaming for them if it was in our favour. What's annoying is that Beaton missed both instances and VAR called him to account. Both St Mirren stands on either side of the pitch shouted for them at the same time so it was obvious to them but not the ref who was considerably closer to both incidents. The games being run/ ruined by VAR not the refs. I cannot shout at VAR as its in some darkened room in the depths of goodness knows where monitored by another incompetent. 

[LIVIFOREVER]

30 minutes ago, Monkey socks said:

From my angle behind the goals I thought they were 2 penalties, pulling arm away or not. I certainly would be screaming for them if it was in our favour. What's annoying is that Beaton missed both instances and VAR called him to account. Both St Mirren stands on either side of the pitch shouted for them at the same time so it was obvious to them but not the ref who was considerably closer to both incidents. The games being run/ ruined by VAR not the refs. I cannot shout at VAR as its in some darkened room in the depths of goodness knows where monitored by another incompetent. 

Yeah i'm not trying to say they weren't hand balls, but surely not all hand balls are penalties, granted i've not seen the replay on the tv so it's looking like i'm wrong on Luiyi's. 

Your hearts in your mouth whenever the ball it in your box this season, since VAR was introduced, i'm sure i heard St Mirren fans shouting hand ball when Shamal ran over and picked the ball up.

The officials are getting worse for not making calls now, they just let everything go on for VAR to check, then 2 or 3 mins later the ball goes out of play and they have a VAR check and the fans are wondering WTF is going on, it really does grate on your nerves this refereeing by VAR carry on, feckers just wont make decisions for themselves. 

[Arch Stanton]

Credit to the ballboys and girls for going with the tempo Saints set in the first half. Look at Watt's goal...a lightning fast return of the ball from the ballboy allowed Strain to take a quick throw to Main and seconds later it was a goal.

[Dagdagh]

24 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

The officials are getting worse for not making calls now, they just let everything go on for VAR to check, then 2 or 3 mins later the ball goes out of play and they have a VAR check and the fans are wondering WTF is going on, it really does grate on your nerves this refereeing by VAR carry on, feckers just wont make decisions for themselves. 

That's what is really bugging the hell out of me as well.  First penalty was such an obvious handball but on field refs seem to have made a collective decision that they don't award handballs any more.  They leave it for VAR to do their job for them.  So play goes on (when everyone knows it's a penalty) and O'Hara gets a yellow card that still stands.  We have to sub him off a half time, Livi take control of the midfield for the first ten minutes of the second half and get two good chances.  All because Beaton (who must have seen it) decides to leave it to VAR. 

The other thing about Beaton yesterday was the amount of times he got in the way of players and play. for both teams, and this guy is meant to be one of our experienced refs?

It's not VAR that's killing the game, it's incompetent refs.  Fire the lot of them and bring in some Scandi refs.  They honestly could not be any worse.

 

[glenburn bud]

5 hours ago, GAD said:

I think the handball penalties were pretty clear tbh. The first one was looked pretty blatant at the time and Beaton should have really given it straight away.

It says a lot about Beaton that he could not have been more than about 20 yards from the first penalty incident, yet he didn’t call it in real time. He might or might not have actually been closer than 20 yards but there you have it. He’s supposedly one of our top refs.