🔵🦁 Raith Rovers v Livingston 🟡🦁 - 31st August 2024

[CountryBumpkin]

A lot of hard work but little end product. Vaughan unlucky but everything else straight at their keeper. Murray the latest to discover he's made from chocolate and going off injured under no pressure. 

Given the number of injuries in the squad, today felt like it was a free hit looking at the lineup. Jamieson and Smith worked hard, Easton got on the ball and we got Stevenson into space out wide. Hanlon was outstanding throughout the game, clear man of the match.  Can't tell if Kev saw the shot late, or if he had been impacted by the previous incident when he was flattened, or if he just didn't manage to save what was fairly routine to him but it wasn't great. 

Yengi for Livi looked dangerous, mostly with his flapping arms and the number 26, Montano? that came on is quite possibly the worst footballer i've ever seen. Has he ever touched a ball before with his feet? Has a long throw, but that was it. 

[TheLangToon]

I thought Raith were the better team. More dangerous and first to almost everything. Should be capitalising on chances such as that header which hit the bar. Goal was Kev’s fault it looked like from my angle. Shot was well struck and had a wicked spin but that’s his bread and butter kind of saves. Given the suspensions and injuries we played well. 1 mistake cost us 2 points. 

[Cptn Hooch]

4 minutes ago, CountryBumpkin said:

A lot of hard work but little end product. Vaughan unlucky but everything else straight at their keeper. Murray the latest to discover he's made from chocolate and going off injured under no pressure. 

Given the number of injuries in the squad, today felt like it was a free hit looking at the lineup. Jamieson and Smith worked hard, Easton got on the ball and we got Stevenson into space out wide. Hanlon was outstanding throughout the game, clear man of the match.  Can't tell if Kev saw the shot late, or if he had been impacted by the previous incident when he was flattened, or if he just didn't manage to save what was fairly routine to him but it wasn't great. 

Yengi for Livi looked dangerous, mostly with his flapping arms and the number 26, Montano? that came on is quite possibly the worst footballer i've ever seen. Has he ever touched a ball before with his feet? Has a long throw, but that was it. 

Odd to hear that about Montano...one of our better players last season. Unfortunately he's made of glass so never gets a long run in the team. He's actually coming back from another injury at the moment which might explain his less than stellar performance 

[LIVIFOREVER]

3 minutes ago, TheLangToon said:

I thought Raith were the better team. More dangerous and first to almost everything. Should be capitalising on chances such as that header which hit the bar. Goal was Kev’s fault it looked like from my angle. Shot was well struck and had a wicked spin but that’s his bread and butter kind of saves. Given the suspensions and injuries we played well. 1 mistake cost us 2 points. 

1 point surely, game was a stalemate at 0-0 till we scored.

[TheLangToon]

Just now, LIVIFOREVER said:

1 point surely, game was a stalemate at 0-0 till we scored.

Yip that's what I meant to say. A fat thumb typo.

[LIVIFOREVER]

18 minutes ago, bagpuss said:

We were fine today but desperately need players back and reinforcements . When we do we'll start climbing the table. 

 

That was a smash and grab today. Livi were there for the taking and it's frustrating we didn't capitalise on that.

 

The best you can say about Colin Steven is at least he's equally incompetent for both teams. Some of his decisions were mind-boggling.

Makes a change, last 2 draws we should've won and have thrown pts away not taking our chances. 

Can't comment on the game as i wasn't there, still feels frustrating we aren't starting our best players, like Green, Sole, Muirhead, or even Lawal. Those players are more likely to get us goals if we'd start them, or even play some of them.

Great getting the win however, as i said, we've played better in games and came away with draws.

[Scary Bear]

For me, that was pretty awful football. Looked a 0-0 until that late goal. The big worry is we don’t seem to have must firepower. When Vaughan came on we looked a bit more dangerous but our attacking play isn’t pretty to watch and it’s not very effective.

[CountryBumpkin]

19 minutes ago, Cptn Hooch said:

Odd to hear that about Montano...one of our better players last season. Unfortunately he's made of glass so never gets a long run in the team. He's actually coming back from another injury at the moment which might explain his less than stellar performance 

Every time it was at his feet it was a panic, multiple touches to control the ball played out, didn't want the ball, didn't like being under pressure. Maybe he's been brought back too early?

[Raithie]

7 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

For me, that was pretty awful football. 

It was miles better than the Airdrie, Partick and Ayr game by a long shot. 

[Scary Bear]

3 minutes ago, Raithie said:

It was miles better than the Airdrie, Partick and Ayr game by a long shot. 

That’s worrying. We were competitive but the football was disjointed. We seem to have forgotten how to attack effectively and create good scoring chances. Only when Vaughan came on did I have any faith that we could score. Our other forwards didn’t do much all game.

It didn’t make me want to race back to Starks. Hopefully we get a manager in soon who can sort us out.

[Troy.1995]

For me,whilst pleasing to get 3 points on the road albeit fortuusly.We had four players on that bench who imo should have started.If they ain't injured get them on and many Livi fans agree.This is such a ruthless division and I feel many of our players are still adjusting to the rigours of the Championship. I suspect Martindale is still trying to figure out his best 11.The guys on the bench when fully fit will come in and give us a genuine chance of challenging at the top.But Raith will probably say the same.Promising start from the Lions.Accies next.

[thruthenight]

Well, that was undeserved. I'll take it after being robbed of 2 points last week, but I'd be fuming as a Rovers fan.

- Debrowski should have saved that, but having made 2 great saves already at that point then I can't too harsh. The one from Shinnie (Clarke maybe?) in the first half in particular was class, but punching away from May in the second was vital.

- Finlayson looks like he has potential, but has the worst positioning of a Livi player that I can remember, and we had Mikey Devlin here last year.

- Prior has great feet. Not really able to assess his shotstopping ability after today, but his distribution looked great. 

- Yengi is much better as a 9, but had a decent game. May looked decent, but if we're going to play the 'hoof it long' game then Yengi needs to be up there, not May. 

- Pittman is half the player of 2 years ago. Needs some time out of the team IMO. 

- Not at all sure about the substitutes. McAlear doesn't look as strong as Green or Lawal. Montano is clearly still unfit and a shadow of his former self. Muirhead looks as if he has potential, but is right wing his best position? Why is he coming on and not Sole?

 

Hey ho, I'll take a win any day. Still think we can win this league.

[Freedom Farter]

1 hour ago, Cptn Hooch said:

Odd to hear that about Montano...one of our better players last season. Unfortunately he's made of glass so never gets a long run in the team. He's actually coming back from another injury at the moment which might explain his less than stellar performance 

He was very good today. Clarke had done fine but the booking might've been inhibiting his defensive game a bit and Raith were on top at that point. Montano's introduction was one of the factors in Livi re-establishing parity. 

[thruthenight]

Oh yeah, 10/10 for the halftime entertainment of a photographer taking his laptop out to upload photos and then the sprinkler in the goal coming on and soaking his equipment

[Freedom Farter]

28 minutes ago, thruthenight said:

- Finlayson looks like he has potential, but has the worst positioning of a Livi player that I can remember, and we had Mikey Devlin here last year.

This might not be what you're getting at but we've had a problem defending down both flanks which was evident at times again today. The goals we conceded against both QP and Morton were due to this issue.

Against QP, Longridge (who was playing right wb) dropped back and Clarke went with him. That took Clarke high and wide, miles away from his centre back (Nottingham).  Turner ended up running into the left back space Clarke had vacated and Shinnie didn't track Turner's run. Turner then crossed for Rudden to score.

The Morton goal saw Moffat dropping off in possession. Finlayson followed him so he was miles away from his centre back (McGowan), Moffat then played the pass into the vacated right back space and Sole had failed to track the overlap from Delaney. Sole then got back and fouled Delaney for the penalty.

So there's a problem with both our full backs following their man to the extent they're getting dragged too far forward and leaving a huge space behind them. What should be happening is they shouldn't be leaving their zone and instead passing their man onto their teammate at wide midfield. That'd stop the space opening up behind them and any runners into their zone they can pick up.

[Hank Scorpio]

Hard to take that, really. Certainly didn’t deserve to lose and the game hinged on 4 vital moments/decisions. 
 

1) The change of shape from 3-5-2 to 4-4-2 when we lost yet another centre half to injury totally threw the balance of the team. We were dominant in possession and never looked like conceding in that shape. Going to 4-4-2 turned up to shit. 
 

2) Vaughan’s header off the bar. Bitterly unlucky and if that drops in we, in all likelihood, win the game. 
 

3) Taking Easton off for Montagu. We’re at home, going for the win and we’re taking off our most creative player with 10 mins to go to bring on an untested 17 year old? Mental decision. We lost all impetus in the middle of the park at this moment. 
 

4) Kev’s butter fingers at the goal. There is just no way a keeper of his quality should be getting beaten with that shot. He’s down, he’s got two hands to it and it’s gone right through him which has cost him the game. There’s some week where I watch Kev and I think, “there is no way we are going to keep him after this season”, and there’s some weeks where I think hes never going to make the step up to the Premiership because of his mistakes - and then there’s weeks like today where I think both of those things within the same 90 minutes. 
 

Colin Steven as ever the subject of much ire from both sets of fans. Just a fundamentally bad referee. Shit decision making, books players for innocuous things and doesn’t for legitimately bad challenges. Bad game management and no control over the game. When you’re booking members of both benches within seconds of one another it’s probably a good indication of you not having a very good afternoon. 
 

We’ve had 4 difficult games to start the season and I’m not particularly worried about the less than great points tally. A proper indication of where we are at will be after the first quarter. Lewis Jamieson looks very sharp. Keen to see more of him.

We cannot sustain the level of injuries our squad gets. Has there been a single week we’ve been missing less than 5 starters? Where was Sam Stanton today? Didn’t see him in the main stand sitting with the other injured players. Needing the manager situation sorted, the injured players back (hahaha) and some reinforcements in the full back and striking department, and we need them right now to change our fortunes. 
 

Edit: seen folk saying Stanton was there. Fair enough if that’s the case, I must’ve missed him. 

Edited August 31 by Hank Scorpio

[Keyser Soze]

Fair play to Livi, talk about a smash and grab, we did it several times last season but they did it today. 

We are still missing 5-6 regulars starters from our 1st 11 but can only play who is available to us, for me that was probably our best performance of the season so far (missed the Airdrie game so can't comment too much there) Kev should have stopped it, not blaming him but I would have expected him to save that 9/10 times.

Quite sure that when we have a full compliment of players we will start winning games like this, to me Livi were nothing special, in fact I expected them to be a lot better.

Last little rant, Colin Steven is an absolute b*****d of a referee and should be demoted below the Lowland League, f**king twat.

[LogieLivi]

That game should have finished 0-0. Obviously as a Livi fan, I'm glad it didn't, but my word it was quite grim.

Starting with the ref - woeful, how does he continue getting given games? I'm sure he was one of the refs last year who was pulled out of games because of how awful he is.

Next up, Livi fans, Yengi was utter tripe today. I don't know what game you were watching if you think he was any good. His first touch is non existent, he plays the wrong pass every time, can't win a flick on and can't shoot. Almost as bad as last season's Nouble.

Shinnie brought his usual F game today after a semi decent performance last week, but trying to do flicks and back heels under pressure? He's supposed to be our "veteran" but he's terrible most of the time.

Michael Nottingham looks like a completely different player from last season. He had a last minute block today that was outstanding.

Stevie May is brilliant.

 

I think that sums up today for me.

[Freedom Farter]

25 minutes ago, LogieLivi said:

Next up, Livi fans, Yengi was utter tripe today. I don't know what game you were watching if you think he was any good. His first touch is non existent, he plays the wrong pass every time, can't win a flick on and can't shoot. Almost as bad as last season's Nouble.

If you're that confident in your opinion that you're chastising other fans for not agreeing with you then you better make sure its correct. It isn't. Yengi was the most important factor in that mini revival towards the end of last season when catching County became a realistic possibility. His goal at Parkhead is not something a shite player can do. His winner away to Partick in the cup was about the only memorable moment we got all season. This season he's done everything but score for us. His all round play has been very good. He's played out of position at right and left wing the last two matches and done well. He also defends noticeably better than the other wide attackers.

[SanStarko]

Disappointing loss, especially given we played so much better than previous weeks.  Still got a long way to go to match our attacking prowess from the first half of last season but it's like night and day compared to the other games this season.  The loss of Murray and needing to change shape as a result didn't help and I reckon it would have comfortably ended 0-0 without that.  Although really it should have still been a comfortable 0-0 if Kev hadn't made an arse of it.

Hanlon looks a level above everyone else in the defence, but I thought Liam Dick was fantastic today and I'd have probably given him MoTM.  Upfront Smith and Jamison were just complete pests and really, like the Partick game, everybody put a shift in and did well.  Just a pity about Kev's mistake at the end.

Colin Stevens..what a complete fud, do these guys not get rated?  Surely nobody watching that could come away thinking he's anywhere near being a competent ref.  It's pretty telling when both sets of fans and seemingly both benches all thought he was utterly woeful.  

Edited August 31 by SanStarko