Livingston v Motherwell 25/10/2025

[joewarkfanclub]

Probably the poorest we have played all season, so more than a bit ironic to get the 3 points.

I thought the pitch played a huge part. Despite being a brand new surface, if you dont water it, its gonna play slow and sticky. Clearly a deliberate ploy from Livvy to disrupt our rythmn, and it worked.

Too many of our key players failed to cope with it and despite still being the better team, we werent anywhere near as effective as usual.

 Good to see Slattery back and his pass to Just for the winner is sublime.

Thought Walsh was very inconsistent with his decisions and let Livvy away with repeated fouling and feigning injury to disrupt the game, and the 2 offside goals are very marginal, particularly the first one, where the VAR camera angle is beyond a joke.

Big win for us. Avoid defeat on Wednesday (or even better win) and we can go into the semi final with a lot of confidence.

[FirParkCornerExile]

6 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

Probably the poorest we have played all season, so more than a bit ironic to get the 3 points.

I thought the pitch played a huge part. Despite being a brand new surface, if you dont water it, its gonna play slow and sticky. Clearly a deliberate ploy from Livvy to disrupt our rythmn, and it worked.

Too many of our key players failed to cope with it and despite still being the better team, we werent anywhere near as effective as usual.

 Good to see Slattery back and his pass to Just for the winner is sublime.

Thought Walsh was very inconsistent with his decisions and let Livvy away with repeated fouling and feigning injury to disrupt the game, and the 2 offside goals are very marginal, particularly the first one, where the VAR camera angle is beyond a joke.

Big win for us. Avoid defeat on Wednesday (or even better win) and we can go into the semi final with a lot of confidence.

The pace of the ball was very slow. Commented about it several times during the game. It created a could of heart stopping moments when we played it across the back 4 . On a grass pitch some of these heart in the mouth moments don't happen.

[Richie]

I've questioned a few offside decisions in the past with the lines, because surely, by definition, they need to be drawn parrallel to the markings (goal-line, box, halfway line) on the park. On occasion it has seemed like the haven't 

[wellon]

1 hour ago, wellup83 said:

VAR and the incompetents that are operating it can get firmly in the bin. Never in a million years was that a clear and obvious offside at best. So pleased justice was done in the end. Massive 3 points that should give us a valuable lift ahead of next week.

Tbf , you're either onside or offside, it's not subjective.

The one last week was terrible decision , which apparently has now been acknowledged to  be wrong? 

So a qualified ref gets a second chance to look at it and gets it wrong..what chance you got?

[texanwellfan]

Not sure how Walsh missed our PK. Maybe it was so obvious and stupid he thought surely the defender didnt do that. So at least VAR worked for that. 

[wellon]

2 hours ago, star sail said:

MJC seals the win for Motherwell!!!

Keep talking nonsense!! It works an absolute treat!!! 

Great result and well deserved. The players were due a win for their efforts!! 

He's still at it then?

Won't scroll back but did he predict a loss or nil nil draw?

[Prestwickwell]

Can’t beat a last minute winner so the team have done well to stick it out 

 

if we put crosses into the box & hit shots from 20 yards out on the back of our nice football we’d score a lot more goals 

 

Need a forward / focal point to mix it up but great result in the end 

[SteelmaninOZ]

The gaffer said 

 

[MJC]

4 hours ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

As it stands the only teams with 1 win are us and Rangers....

Not anymore, although like our good friends from the other end of the M74 we have beaten Livi away 2-1 with a last gasp winner. Hopefully they draw level with us on league wins tomorrow by putting Kettlewell’s Killie pies in their place.

[Inflato]

1 hour ago, wellon said:

Tbf , you're either onside or offside, it's not subjective.

Whilst I agree with your statement, I absolutely do not believe the technology used in Scotland can prove this beyond doubt. 

[Kmcalpin]

6 hours ago, wellup83 said:

Story of the season so far. Our build up's far too slow. Allowing the opposition to get players behind the ball.

Absolutely. Time and again we broke up the park, but dithered on the ball and failed to pick out one of our lads running into space or only did so, once he was covered. An early pass would have caught defenders out. 

[Kmcalpin]

6 hours ago, Ya Bezzer! said:

One of the weird things I've noticed is teams tend to create roughly the same number of chances regardless of actual possession varying by large degrees.

I'm not sure how you actually explain that but it's there to see.

Yes, despite all our pretty football and possession, Livingston created more chances than we did. They were deservedly ahead at the break and had we gone in 2/3 goals down, we couldn't have complained. 

[robsterwood]

3 hours ago, texanwellfan said:

Thought Ward had a good game today. 

Yes ward done good 👍 

[Kmcalpin]

5 hours ago, wellsince75 said:

 We were poor today yet had the ball in the net 4 times . Not convinced that 2 should have been chalked off 

Yes  just watched the highlights. Both offside decisions were very very tight. As for the first  I thought  at the time that Just was well offside but on TV it looked as though he was just on. Millimetres in it and certainly not clear nor obvious. VAR rerefereeing the match. 

[ropy]

9 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

Yes  just watched the highlights. Both offside decisions were very very tight. As for the first  I thought  at the time that Just was well offside but on TV it looked as though he was just on. Millimetres in it and certainly not clear nor obvious. VAR rerefereeing the match. 

Did the linesman not give it as offside, so VAR would only overturn it if it was clearly onside, nothing was clear.

[Kmcalpin]

3 hours ago, joewarkfanclub said:

Thought Walsh was very inconsistent with his decisions and let Livvy away with repeated fouling and feigning injury to disrupt the game.

I thought he was very inconsistent and weak. Livi committed 3 fouls in the first 3/4 minutes alone and its easy to see why they top the league's crime count. Despite Livvy players escaping cards for several bad fouls, it was odds on we'd collect the first card and lo and behold we did. The lad who suddenly went down injured after a long VAR delay and just as our penalty was about to be taken was clearly at it and everyone but Nick Walsh could see it.

[MFCL84]

1 hour ago, Inflato said:

Whilst I agree with your statement, I absolutely do not believe the technology used in Scotland can prove this beyond doubt. 

Yeah, very disappointed with Sportscene coverage not showing the VAR lines for either offside "goal".

[Kmcalpin]

9 minutes ago, MFCL84 said:

Yeah, very disappointed with Sportscene coverage not showing the VAR lines for either offside "goal".

Yes, if you believed the highlights, then Livi were all over us in the first half  which they weren't. 

[grizzlyg]

3 hours ago, texanwellfan said:

Not sure how Walsh missed our PK. Maybe it was so obvious and stupid he thought surely the defender didnt do that. So at least VAR worked for that. 

I thought Stama took the PK and scored? 🤣🤣🤣

[MFCL84]

27 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

I thought he was very inconsistent and weak. Livi committed 3 fouls in the first 3/4 minutes alone and its easy to see why they top the league's crime count. Despite Livvy players escaping cards for several bad fouls, it was odds on we'd collect the first card and lo and behold we did. The lad who suddenly went down injured after a long VAR delay and just as our penalty was about to be taken was clearly at it and everyone but Nick Walsh could see it.

Agreed, the referee today was abysmal. Extremely weak. He allowed Livi players to come through the back on multiple occasions without any caution. At one stage 3 players had a go at Maswanhise and no cards dished out.

Your point about the simulated injuries is spot on. This behaviour is so frustrating as a fan at the game, this sort of behaviour really needs to carry some form of punishment. 

[wellfan]

VAR has no business ruling on offside decisions until there are at least two correctly placed cameras on both sides of the pitch.

[Inflato]

12 minutes ago, Kmcalpin said:

Yes, if you believed the highlights, then Livi were all over us in the first half  which they weren't. 

Yeah, agree.

I think the editing process will generally mean we don't get to see the real us. Highlights tend to focus on the lead-up to shots on goal / goals, but a lot of our intricate passes (lovely to watch as it is) doesn't actually lead to that.

[joewarkfanclub]

4 hours ago, Richie said:

I've questioned a few offside decisions in the past with the lines, because surely, by definition, they need to be drawn parrallel to the markings (goal-line, box, halfway line) on the park. On occasion it has seemed like the haven't 

I think the VAR technology can provide the angles to draw the lines. But we paid for the cheap version with less cameras which, by definition will be less accurate. 

It therefore stands to reason that, with very tight decisions like today's, its hard to have confidence in its accuracy.

So although it isnt a subjective thing, the "clear and obvious" is still a fair shout......

[Kmcalpin]

12 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

I think the VAR technology can provide the angles to draw the lines. But we paid for the cheap version with less cameras which, by definition will be less accurate. 

It therefore stands to reason that, with very tight decisions like today's, its hard to have confidence in its accuracy.

So although it isnt a subjective thing, the "clear and obvious" is still a fair shout......

Agree with that Joe. Given the degree of inaccuracy and uncertainty built into our budget system you'd think that the VAR operators would not place too much weight on very tight offside calls unless they're "clear and obvious". But, that's not how they're using it. 

[weeyin]

1 hour ago, wellfan said:

VAR has no business ruling on offside decisions until there are at least two correctly placed cameras on both sides of the pitch.

That's yet another weakness. The minimum number of required cameras is a joke.

I'd also argue the offside rule isn't fit for purpose now VAR is being used. It was designed to prevent teams sticking a player in the box for 90 minutes and punting long balls to them. It wasn't intended to rule out goals when someone's big toe is half a centimetre ahead of the defenders's big toe.

But that is a different discussion.