As you probably have noticed, our wee team isn’t exactly lighting the SPL on fire at the moment, and to tell you the truth, most Livingston supporters will agree that this is probably the worst spell that the club has went through in it’s short history in the Ess Pee Hell. The Lions league campaign couldn’t have started at a worst place, a young Livingston side travelled the short distance along the M8 to take on an experienced Glasgow Rangers side, who’s supporters were on a high, waiting for the champions flag to be unfurled at Ibrox Park. Livingston lost the match 3-0, and had Richard Britton sent off for what can only be described as a mistimed tackle, but that’s what happens when the ref is out to impress his 40 odd thousand best pals.
The next few games saw the Lions get embarrassingly humped by First Division Champions Falkirk, and the team we gubbed easily in the CIS Cup Final, Hibernian. These games were hard to watch, and when Dunfermline came to Almondvale, most supporters were worried that the Lions would yet again end up on the wrong end of a thrashing. The feared cricket-score didn’t materialise, and the Lions picked up their first point of the season.
Next came a surprise victory at Starks Park, when Livingston beat Raith Rovers in the CIS Cup. Make no mistake about it, we were the underdogs in this game, but despite Raith taking the lead, the Lions fought back and Paul Lamberts side got their first win of the season.
Just when it seemed as if the Livingston players were starting to gel, Lambert and his side were brought back down to earth as they travelled to Rugby Park, and it could easily have been a Rugby score as Livi were yet again demolished in front of a poor Kilmarnock support.
If it would have been anyone else in the dug out, I’m sure they would have been papped out long before now, but Lambert seems to have a license to get beat every week, and that trend continued when league leaders Hearts travelled to Almondvale, and the Livi supporters weren’t too surprised when poor defending and a midfield that would have been better off in Jamaica saw the Jambo’s fire four goals past the helpless Roddy McKenzie in the Livi goal.
Next up was a trip to Tannadice, and yet another defeat was on hand, as former Livingston player David Fernandez headed the Arabs a 34th minute lead, and a late goal from Canero made sure Livingston headed back down the M9 empty handed.
Lamberts second win of the season felt like a European Cup win to the Lions faithful. A cold Wednesday night saw Hearts visit Almondvale in the CIS Cup, and although confidence was running high through the Tynecastle sides’ camp, the Lions proved too strong for the Edinburgh side, and a second half strike from Ramon Periera sent the Lions through to the quarter finals.
Aberdeen was next on the fixture list, and a hard earned draw at Pitoddrie saw Lamberts side double their points tally for the season. On another note, a downmarket English newspaper claimed in the Sunday edition of their rag, that Livingston took “50” supporters to Pittodrie, a supporters photo has shown this to be totally and utterly false. Four full supporters busses taking approximately 50-70 people on each, made the journey, plus carloads of supporters made the trip. Scottish football at the moment needs all the good publicity it can get, but these people are giving it all the wrong kind of publicly, and that can only be bad for our game.
A match against Celtic a couple of weeks ago is one that we all need to forget, and hopefully the players will have blanked that from their minds, because Motherwell at Fir Park is always going to be a hard game, and the last thing we need, is the players to be low in confidence.
One thing I do believe is that we will get out of this rut we are in. Our chairman has already invested some money into the club, but he has admitted that the club is a year behind schedule, and that’s mainly down to Lionheart’s taking over of the club being severely delayed, and Kachloulgate, which could have saw Livingston relegated to the first division.
Livingston FC has still got loads of potential, but we need to get supporters back through the door, need to get some decent young players through the ranks, and most importantly, we need to start winning. Lets be realistic, were not going to win the league, neither is Motherwell, and I’ll eat my Livi top if Hearts do, their bubble is about to burst, but we can win the cups, can get into Europe, and we sure as hell can fight our way out of the relegation zone again.
Is Paul Lambert the right man for the job? A lot of Livingston supporters are willing to give him time, they know he’s been thrown in at the deep end, but no one ever said that it was going to be easy, and Paul and Norrie are learning the hard way. If Livingston are still in this state at the end of January, then I recon it’ll be time for them to move on, but I’m quite confident we’ll be further up the table by that time, and possibly in with a chance of seeing the glorious Hampden Park once again.