Livingston vs Motherwell 03/08/2019

[underboyleheating]

1 minute ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Simple fact is you have to play the conditions.  Its not down to the opposition to make it easier for us.

Agreed, while plastic is not fantastic there are plenty of teams who will go there this season and hump them. 

[Yodo]

Midfield found out today went missing after 10 mins and never got back into the game . Thought we should have played more balls over the top to use the wingers pace especially on that pitch .If we go in against Celtic with that midfield we will get us a severe doing and btw the guy Long is murder 

[Ya Bezzer!]

1 minute ago, Yorkyred said:

That pitch is a complete joke, you can’t play football on it, that’s not a deflection tactic, that’s just a plain fact. 

I never said the pitch isn't a joke.  What I said is you have to play the conditions.

We didn't.  And let's be honest, does anyone think it would have made a huge difference today?  Livingston countered our set up very well and virtually the entire team was off the boil.

Blaming the pitch is a cheap and easy get out for a poor performance from the players and the manager.

 

[Yorkyred]

1 minute ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

I never said the pitch isn't a joke.  What I said is you have to play the conditions.

We didn't.  And let's be honest, does anyone think it would have made a huge difference today?  Livingston countered our set up very well and virtually the entire team was off the boil.

Blaming the pitch is a cheap and easy get out for a poor performance from the players and the manager.

 

Sorry but “Did the pitch make a huge difference today”  come on.

[BAZ]

Could not manage to game, however had car radio on and Alan Preston was very critical of the pitch. He also said that these pitches should be banned in top flight football. So obviously the pitch would have made a difference. 

[Ya Bezzer!]

1 minute ago, Yorkyred said:

Sorry but “Did the pitch make a huge difference today”  come on.

Let me put it this way, do you think our players touch, passing, decision making, cohesion as a team, tactical set up and performance of the opposition in countering it was a bigger influence than the pitch?

I say it was.  The pitch no doubt had an influence but it was maybe 10 - 15% not 60 or 70%.

It's a bad pitch, we all know that, but that shouldn't ever be a get of jail card for a pretty poor performance.  Was it the pitches fault that we hardly won a header in the first hald?  Or that Dunne was repeatedly hitting the same ball to no effect every time?   Or getting outpaced down the flank.  Was it the pitches fault that our centre forward had to come deep to get on the ball?  

Let's just call a spade a spade.  It was a poor performance, end of story.

[Yorkyred]

3 minutes ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

Let me put it this way, do you think our players touch, passing, decision making, cohesion as a team, tactical set up and performance of the opposition in countering it was a bigger influence than the pitch?

I say it was.  The pitch no doubt had an influence but it was maybe 10 - 15% not 60 or 70%.

It's a bad pitch, we all know that, but that shouldn't ever be a get of jail card for a pretty poor performance.  Was it the pitches fault that we hardly won a header in the first hald?  Or that Dunne was repeatedly hitting the same ball to no effect every time?   Or getting outpaced down the flank.  Was it the pitches fault that our centre forward had to come deep to get on the ball?  

Let's just call a spade a spade.  It was a poor performance, end of story.

Nope, I think the biggest influence was the pitch, and much of what happened came from the dreadful surface, the players lost faith in it very quickly when they realised you could not actually pass the ball on the ground and have any sort of consistency, pace, bounce of the ball, bobbles, players struggling to stay upright.

[Spiderpig]

35 minutes ago, steelboy said:

It would be good to see the club coming out against plastic pitches. Fans are being robbed.

Yes the pitch might be shite but its not as if that's the first time any of them have played on plastic so blaming it for a poor performance is nonsense, lots of teams will go there and pump that mob.

But that said if you are not going to win a game for whatever reason, make sure you don't lose it and we did that, so 1st game, points on the board another clean sheet and unbeaten,  what's not to like, we move on to next week.

[Pettywulliegrew-2]

The bizarre tactic of having every player behind the ball/ inside our area when Livy had a free kick or long throw in nearly cost us dearly near the end as we had no out ball/ could not clear  our lines........yet when we were defending corners put two player up the park

We should not have plastic pitches in our top flight........totally agree with BBC's Preston

referee was very poor IMHO ........that was his third  top flight game ,and it showed .........2 previous were bottom split game in May(3-2 Livy) way out of his depth

 Livingston head coach Gary Holt tells BBC Scotland: "I thought it was a really good game of football. There was no quarter asked or given by both sides"

dont know what game he was watching

 

[Yodo]

23 minutes ago, Yorkyred said:

Nope, I think the biggest influence was the pitch, and much of what happened came from the dreadful surface, the players lost faith in it very quickly when they realised you could not actually pass the ball on the ground and have any sort of consistency, pace, bounce of the ball, bobbles, players struggling to stay upright.

Mate the performance was poor from the word go you can blame the pitch all you like but it was lack of quality from our team that stood out a mile couldn't string two passes together and hardly won a ball in the middle of the park and just our luck with Celtic coming to play on our bowling green next Sat 

[steelboy]

There was plenty of stuff which had nothing to do with the pitch. Constantly trying to play the ball through Dunne, waiting an hour to go long and wide and our midfield being horrific for the entire 90 minutes wasn't down to the pitch. Ilic on the right wing made no sense, every time he gets the ball he is turning the wrong way to get onto his left side.

The positives were a good performance from Carroll, Dunne defended well, Gallagher and Tait were ok and Hylton showed flashes. Devante Cole showed promise when he came on as well and will hopefully be able to start next week.

The low point of the game was having a free kick inside their half and passing the ball into our half to Dunne. That's a poorly coached team.

[Katie]

Better start than last year. 

[ropy]

Great crowd, great response to Turnbull, great tribute to McGrillen, football not so great, but each season I look for our first goal and first point on the table, so we are off and running, tough one next week.

[grizzlyg]

If Dunne had no pace he would be nowhere near starting xi as passing brutal.  A point is better than none so onwards and upwards to next week!,. Lose that and title chances have gone!!!! Heh he

[Yassin]

4 hours ago, Spiderpig said:

Birmingham are winning 1-0

[asdf1234]

Some bright points but majority disjointed. Felt like pre season

carroll is absolute quality I thought, especially because hylton stayed up ready for the counter

all wingers showed hints of their potential, just not much of the ball given to them. 

Donnelly had a poor game and is the weakest of the three in the middle, we need a lad in there that will dictate and show for the ball and take it on the half turn, Campbell showed his potential to do that towards the end though.  

‘I feel folk are a bit pessimistic after that one. Yes it wasn’t great but a bit more organisation and this team could be great. Also that pitch is a shocker

[Al B]

32 minutes ago, asdf1234 said:

Some bright points but majority disjointed. Felt like pre season

carroll is absolute quality I thought, especially because hylton stayed up ready for the counter

all wingers showed hints of their potential, just not much of the ball given to them. 

Donnelly had a poor game and is the weakest of the three in the middle, we need a lad in there that will dictate and show for the ball and take it on the half turn, Campbell showed his potential to do that towards the end though.  

‘I feel folk are a bit pessimistic after that one. Yes it wasn’t great but a bit more organisation and this team could be great. Also that pitch is a shocker

I actually agree with that part that I've put in bold. For me it was one of those days where the weather is great, the crowd is great, everyone is in a cracking mood and it feels like one of those days where the players are just going to revel in it, and then they don't. That always makes disappointment feel worse.

[Ya Bezzer!]

Livingston had Pittman, Jacobs, Bartley in the midfield.

Maybe the reason they won the battle is because it's actually qualitatively better than ours.

[Welldaft Mk1]

I felt we were average overall. 

We have lost games like that before and at Livingston. 

However another clean sheet and thanks to Gillespie for that. 

Both teams had chances and on another day could have been 1-1 or 2-2. 

That pitch however is an abomination. Our players were struggling all afternoon to control the ball. Should never be allowed in top flight. 

An away point at a ground where their home record was top 6 is OK. 

Next week different ball game. Celtic will like our pitch. But I reckon we will get another point,

[CoF]

Seemed like there was no room on that pitch at all, we certainly didn't capitalise on the pace we have out wide. Or rather, Livi did well to nullify it. Or rather, the pitch got in the way. Or rather, we weren't very good. Probably a bit of all three.

To leave with a point is decent enough.  To put a positive spin on it, the fact we got a point when we we're quite shite suggests..... something. Not sure what. 

Carrol was good. Gallagher was loving putting his team-mates under pressure with some awful passes. Gillespie will gain us many points this season. 

That concludes my clinical insights. 

[Kmcalpin]

Overall a decent result and a clean sheet on an abomination of pitch.  More teams than us will struggle against Livingston on their pitch.  Its a game we could well have lost in the past.  Perhaps our tactics and line up weren't suited to the conditions and as a few commentators have implied as it wasn't the venue for fast open wing play. Sometimes you need to engage in the footballing equivalent of hand to hand combat but we don't seem to have the squad to do that on these plastic pitches. In short, admirable though our intentions were, it wasn't a day for exciting football. Our young management duo will have learnt from their errors. 

Early days of course but nothing that happened today changed my opinion that we're short of an out and out "number 9" striker with some physical presence. Hopefully we'll see one coming in shortly.  I'm also not sure that our central midfield is right.  Maybe a fully fit Sloth will improve matters and I'm still not convinced Donnelly is the man for the defensive midfield role. 

All in all an acceptable  start result wise. 

[CoF]

17 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

Sometimes you need to engage in the footballing equivalent of hand to hand combat but we don't seem to have the squad to do that on these plastic pitches. 

Don't know if my view is skewed having seen two awful leg breaks playing amateur on astroturf, but today gave me the fear.

Seemed like every physical dual left someone on the deck with some sort of injury. Not sure if upping the physicality on these pitches is a good idea. 

[santheman]

Be interesting to find out if we came through that without any injury doubts for the Celtic game. Quite a few took some hard knocks out there today 

[Yodo]

9 hours ago, Al B said:

I actually agree with that part that I've put in bold. For me it was one of those days where the weather is great, the crowd is great, everyone is in a cracking mood and it feels like one of those days where the players are just going to revel in it, and then they don't. That always makes disappointment feel worse.

Both of you must have sun stroke " this team could be great " aye right 

[livivoice]

Don't know if it was my imagination but I thought I saw Sloth warming up before the game. If so I take it he failed a late fitness test and Cole/ Semple brought in.

 

Can anybody clarifify ?