The League Cup 2018'19 Thread

[Kmcalpin]

56 minutes ago, weeyin said:

If we had Tanner, Cadden, Dunne, Grimshaw and Bowman out last season - and then lost Hartley during the game - we'd have struggled to win this one; never mind be able to give Campbell a rest.

We can argue the toss about the new signings, but today showed we at least have a depth we didn't have at key points last season.

 

Absolutely.  First and foremost job done and we progress to the next round.  Overall we deserved the win and registered a clean sheet too.  First half we started off very shakily and almost lost a goal or two but gradually we imposed ourselves and created a few chances  and ultimately scored what proved to be the winning goal. Livi maybe outmusceld us but we played what little football was on display.   We looked far better on the ball than off it.  The midfield created chances, which it hasn't been doing and tried to play football on an horrific pitch.  Not blistering stuff but they tried. Defensively though they left the defence exposed and a better side would have punished us.  Still we played to our strengths.  

The second half was a non event.  We sat back and parked the bus and Livi imposed themselves on the game but we stayed the course and the rearguard protected Carson pretty well as Livi looked toothless.  They had plenty of pressure; they outcompeted us, but ultimately had a lack of quality up front.   Although the midfield was somewhat unbalanced, the likes of Gorrin and Bigi proved they can play football on the deck and will improve with more game time.  Johnson played well and Main looks to be regaining his sharpness.

The pitch was awful as illustrated by a glorious pass from Rose to Main.  The latter anticipated it and ran on only to find the ball had hit the surface behind him and stopped stone dead, making him look silly.  Willie Collum gave us nothing all day but thankfully didn't make any major howlers.  Finally a class gesture by Richard Tait for coming into the stand in front of us and checking on the youngster who was hit by the ball.  

[grizzlyg]

Plus points today we're Johnson, Bigi, Main and Campbell good when he came on.  And I must say a excellent steak pie.  And Dicky Tait gesture at end class.  Never heard so many folk go OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO after that young lad got smacked in head. Hope he is ok.

Negatives were that joke of a pitch.......frear 2nd half ( somebody give him a right leg)...joke of a pitch.......the tactics of Carson lumping it forward from every goal kick.......joke of a pitch....and the booing when final sub made. I hope it was because Johnson came off and not cos Sammon came on. Yep Sammon poor last week but jeez give him a chance. So many fans too quick to judge a player.

Ps.   Did I say that the pitch was a joke.

PPS.  I don't think livi v accies will be all ticket......under 1000 I reckon

[middleeastdave]

29 minutes ago, grizzlyg said:

Plus points today we're Johnson, Bigi, Main and Campbell good when he came on.  And I must say a excellent steak pie.  And Dicky Tait gesture at end class.  Never heard so many folk go OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO after that young lad got smacked in head. Hope he is ok.

Negatives were that joke of a pitch.......frear 2nd half ( somebody give him a right leg)...joke of a pitch.......the tactics of Carson lumping it forward from every goal kick.......joke of a pitch....and the booing when final sub made. I hope it was because Johnson came off and not cos Sammon came on. Yep Sammon poor last week but jeez give him a chance. So many fans too quick to judge a player.

Ps.   Did I say that the pitch was a joke.

PPS.  I don't think livi v accies will be all ticket......under 1000 I reckon

Spot on my friend

[Yodo]

1 hour ago, weeyin said:

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt as intentionally missing the point in a feeble trolling effort. 

You must upset that Frear put in a decent shift again.

Aye he became the hide n seek champion in the second half or did you not see that 

[wellowell]

The booing imo was that we were 1 0 up not chasing the game and he brought on final sub with 20 minutes to go so if got an injury we were down to 10 men . Also fact that it is plainly obvious that Main and Sammon can’t play together as always 30 yards apart was another reason . Don’t think it was Sammon being booed as sure if he replaced Main would have been different it was the fact that we had a partnership last 20 minutes that does not work but Robbo seems to think it can . I hope Main gets last years form back but again only my opinion but he’s been absolute crap all season and keeps getting 90 minutes which as a fan is frustrating . Great result today and happy to be in hat fir quarter finals but really hope we don’t  go back to the Sammon/Main partnership as every time we win Robbo seems to change it  next game . As as aside might be wrong but I’m sure Frear has started 4 games this season and we have won all 4 lost the other 3 yet keeps getting dropped . I’m not a massive Frear fan but why do we keep dropping him when we keep winning when he starts . Had a few beers today so might be wrong with that fact but sure won’t be far out .

[Yorkyred]

In my opinion the booing was because Johnson was taken off, he’s going to be a fan favourite very quickly.

[Kmcalpin]

Johnson was rightly taken off as he was knackered. 

[daver]

Yeah,  he was done and had disappeared from the game. The booing was only when he was going off, not when Sammon was coming on.

[Yorkyred]

30 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

Johnson was rightly taken off as he was knackered. 

Not disagreeing.

[sbcmfc]

Why did the game kick off at 5 to 3?

[wellowell]

Because Motherwell fans were queueing outside and not old firm fans I left there bar at 2 40 a minute from gate and still missed kick off 

[sbcmfc]

14 minutes ago, wellowell said:

Because Motherwell fans were queueing outside and not old firm fans I left there bar at 2 40 a minute from gate and still missed kick off 

Aye, we got in a couple of minutes to 3, just after KO, took about 15-20 minutes, Queue was still same length as when we had joined at that point.

Wonder if they had more than 4 turnstiles open for the 200 home fans?

[Kmcalpin]

Encouraging to see Hartley coming back to form despite having a difficult afternoon.

[wellowell]

Hope it was just a tweak he came off for and nothing serious as signalled to bench to come off 

[superward]

50 minutes ago, wellowell said:

Hope it was just a tweak he came off for and nothing serious as signalled to bench to come off 

Just cramp 

[stv]

3 hours ago, wellowell said:

Because Motherwell fans were queueing outside and not old firm fans I left there bar at 2 40 a minute from gate and still missed kick off 

Aye thats a slippery slope , missing the football because of drink.

[daver]

To be fair, anyone who wasn't in the queue by quarter to three would have missed kick off, not helped by the early kick off and the size of the queues (although a lot better than Broadwood).

[The African]

A win is a win. I think we budget for reaching the quarters of both cups, so that is a goal achieved.

Also good to beat a side who may turn out to be at the squeaky bum end of the league table, along with us, if only for a boost in our confidence.

Unfortunate that the schedule of fixtures means that we are not likely to be able to continue our winning streak. Just got to hope that the performances can continue on an upward track.

[Andy_P]

An open and entertaining Cup tie that happily we managed get through with a few positives along the way.

It was fairly encouraging stuff, first half at least.

I'm a little surprised to some remarks about the balance not being right. Not perfect but to me it actually appeared as balanced a line up as we've had in a while. The defence appeared fairly well tuned with Hartley in particular looking a bit more like his old self with that old mixture of appropriately timed aggression and positional sense being more evident than it has been thus far.  And even after he went off the longer the game went on it was pleasing how less and less Livingston were able to trouble Carson.

Whether by accident or design having two "footballers" in the middle of the park in Bigi and Alex made such a positive difference.  That additional player in the middle that is primarily there to create rather than nulify to me gave us a much better balanced side. They aren't going to be making defence splitting passes every five minutes but just that ability to show a little composure on the ball, recycling it along the deck to a team-mate to retain possession and build again rather than a panicky long ball makes such a fundamental difference in how we play. It could be argued of course that Robinson already views Cadden as one of those two creative types but it remains up for debate how effective he is in that role.

And up front it was not only great to see Johnson get on the scoresheet but that Main was involved in the build up was equally encouraging. 

Things did drop off a fair bit in the second half though and the longer the game went on the more we seemed to revert to type but I think on the back on what's gone before this season I've a good deal more optimism than I had beforehand.

[1991]

What has happend to Donnelly I don't recall seeing he was injured.

That pitch is terrible worst iv saw, the pitch at the back of stand looked better surely something must be done look at the negative press we got with our sand pitch. 

[Del_Superwell]

8 minutes ago, 1991 said:

What has happend to Donnelly I don't recall seeing he was injured.

That pitch is terrible worst iv saw, the pitch at the back of stand looked better surely something must be done look at the negative press we got with our sand pitch. 

Donnelly picked up an injury the day before the accies game and is out for 3 weeks,  still at least we have Maguire as a back up option on the bench at the moment.

[Yorkyred]

22 minutes ago, Andy_P said:

An open and entertaining Cup tie that happily we managed get through with a few positives along the way.

It was fairly encouraging stuff, first half at least.

I'm a little surprised to some remarks about the balance not being right. Not perfect but to me it actually appeared as balanced a line up as we've had in a while. The defence appeared fairly well tuned with Hartley in particular looking a bit more like his old self with that old mixture of appropriately timed aggression and positional sense being more evident than it has been thus far.  And even after he went off the longer the game went on it was pleasing how less and less Livingston were able to trouble Carson.

Whether by accident or design having two "footballers" in the middle of the park in Bigi and Alex made such a positive difference.  That additional player in the middle that is primarily there to create rather than nulify to me gave us a much better balanced side. They aren't going to be making defence splitting passes every five minutes but just that ability to show a little composure on the ball, recycling it along the deck to a team-mate to retain possession and build again rather than a panicky long ball makes such a fundamental difference in how we play. It could be argued of course that Robinson already views Cadden as one of those two creative types but it remains up for debate how effective he is in that role.

And up front it was not only great to see Johnson get on the scoresheet but that Main was involved in the build up was equally encouraging. 

Things did drop off a fair bit in the second half though and the longer the game went on the more we seemed to revert to type but I think on the back on what's gone before this season I've a good deal more optimism than I had beforehand.

I worried in advance that the combination of Bigi and Gorrin may be a little lightweight but they actually did well against to be fair a pretty limited side, Cadden is certainly not as creative but pretty much a shoe in when fit. We played a lot more football on the ground yesterday because of that combination but I can see Gorrin being dropped again next game up.

[Kmcalpin]

31 minutes ago, Andy_P said:

I'm a little surprised to some remarks about the balance not being right.

I was referring to the midfield Andy.  Yes, we were far more creative and tried to play football which was encouraging and delighted those around me.  So that was a clear positive.  We created far more chances than of late and our ball retention was vastly better than it has been.  Up to about the 60 minute mark they also supported the strikers very well. On the debit side we lacked a bit of muscle and defensive capability and lost a few more 50/50s than I was comfortable with.  Also defensively the midfield as a unit gave Livingston far too much room; didn't work hard enough off the ball and left the back 3 exposed.  Fortunately,  Livingston were pretty toothless up front and Hartley and co.  were in fine form.   In the second half Bigi and Gorrin disappeared a bit as they unsurprisingly ran out of steam.  When Allan Campbell came on he brought with him fresh legs and a much needed competitve edge. 

I doubt very much if the manager would have played that midfield combination had he had fewer injuries.  Unlikely that he'd play Gorrin and Bigi together.  To be fair to both lads they didn't look fully fit or match fit but they'll come on and they both have far more to give.  Overall the midfield was what it was - creative and effective on the ball but lightweight and defensively suspect.  I think Bigi and Gorrin showed they have what it takes to retain one starting place between them and I look forward to them both being fully fit. 

I haven't mentioned Andy Rose much but there was a lot resting on his shoulders yesterday and he had a reasonable game doing a lot of dirty spade work.

[Andy_P]

18 minutes ago, Yorkyred said:

I worried in advance that the combination of Bigi and Gorrin may be a little lightweight but they actually did well against to be fair a pretty limited side, Cadden is certainly not as creative but pretty much a shoe in when fit. We played a lot more football on the ground yesterday because of that combination but I can see Gorrin being dropped again next game up.

I very much suspect you're right there for more than one reason.  Aside from the fact Robinson generally goes with those he trusts it would be quite bold to go with them both from the start against Rangers given the oft said "win the right to play" mantra.  But on the basis of yesterday it's now presented itself a viable option when we do need some variance whether chasing a game or against a side more of our ilk.

[Yorkyred]

39 minutes ago, Andy_P said:

I very much suspect you're right there for more than one reason.  Aside from the fact Robinson generally goes with those he trusts it would be quite bold to go with them both from the start against Rangers given the oft said "win the right to play" mantra.  But on the basis of yesterday it's now presented itself a viable option when we do need some variance whether chasing a game or against a side more of our ilk.

Agreed