Lions limp into break to recover

Published on Friday 3 January 2003 00:00

IT’S not difficult to understand why Livingston boss Jim Leishman is so relieved that the Premierleague’s winter break is now upon us.

The Lions chief took his stretched squad to Dunfermline yesterday minus a whole host of players who, were they fit, would probably have started the match.

The hope for the Lions gaffer is that the majority of those individuals will, by the end of the three-week hiatus, have recovered sufficiently from their injuries to reclaim their places.

Philippe Brinquin, Barry Wilson, Emmanuel Dorado, David McNamee, Eugene Dadi, Gus Bahoken and Stuart Lovell all sat out the 2-0 defeat to the Pars, while keeper Javier Sanchez Broto joined the casualty list early in the second half when he departed the fray with a back injury.

Of those, only Dorado looks certain to be missing when the Almondvale men return to action against opponents not yet known in the Scottish Cup on the 25th of this month.

The return of so many influential men will provide some welcome options to Leishman and head coach Davie Hay, who have spent most of the club’s second season in the top flight working with their backs against the wall.

Not that they’ve moaned about their predicament. No other team in the country has been hit by such a spate of injuries, but Leishman always finds a way to sound upbeat in even the most trying of circumstances.

However, with his team lying tenth in the table he is glad of the respite the break will give him.

He said: "I think that overall we are quite glad the break is here now. Had we got a point against Dunfermline we might have been inclined to want to play on as our results have been good over the past couple of weeks.

"But the defeat brought a few things into focus for us and the break should do us good. We had our starting XI out there, but each of the five lads on the bench were under-21 players, so that shows you how stretched we’ve been.

"We only had 16 fit players available for the game but this rest should help us get a few more back.

"The likes of Barry, Philippe and Stuart Lovell, who is our captain and so important, should all be back when we return.

"That’s bound to help us and hopefully we’ll be stronger for it."

A cursory glance at the current state of the East End Park playing surface would be enough to silence most who doubt the merits of having a shutdown.

Just half-an-hour before kick-off yesterday, referee Garry Mitchell was still unsure of whether the match would go ahead or not due to the surface water gathering as the rain and sleet fell.

The whistler consulted with both Leishman and Pars counterpart Jimmy Calderwood and it was agreed the game would start, but he refused to rule out an abandonment if the conditions deteriorated sufficiently.

That never happened, but the pitch quickly cut up and it was difficult for either side to play their silkiest football.

The home side adapted best in the opening stages, while the Lions struggled to adapt to the unusual 3-5-2 formation with which they started the game.

Juanjo Camacho, a naturally left-sided player, was surprisingly deployed at right wing-back but the instructions soon went out from the dug-out to revert to the more familiar 4-3-3 set-up and they began to dominate.

A fine move involving Michael Hart, Davide Xausa and Camacho saw the ball laid into the path of David Bingham, who drilled a low shot wide before Roly Zarate nodded a Hart cross a foot past the post.

Their best effort of the half came when Bingham played in Quino, whose powerful shot was beaten away by Derek Stillie.

The Pars then found the cutting edge which had been lacking during their earlier period of territorial dominance, but there was more than a hint of fortune about the goal when it came just before the interval.

Jason Dair played a pass into the area towards Stevie Crawford, who took advantage of the fact the ball stuck in the mud as he spun Marvin Andrews and fired a shot past Broto and into the net via the post.

The Spanish shotstopper lasted just four minutes after the break when he was replaced by Dave McEwan. The youngster had an unfortunate introduction to the action and found himself picking the ball out of the net less than ten minutes later.

Dair laid the ball to Craig Brewster and from 20 yards, the experienced striker hit a shot that skidded off the surface and which McEwan failed to gather. The ball broke off the keeper’s knee and into the path of Crawford who thumped the ball into the net.

Leishman described McEwan as being "disappointed" with the way the goal was lost, but questions could also be asked of the defenders who failed to close Brewster down and who also allowed Crawford the freedom to knock the rebound home unchallenged.

Livingston came back and tried valiantly to pull themselves back into the game but were denied by some dogged defending.

McEwan redeemed himself somewhat 15 minutes from time when he nicked the ball away from the feet of Crawford, who had dispossessed Rubio to bear down on goal in search of his hat-trick.

Leishman felt it was the loss of the first goal at such a crucial juncture in the game that cost his side the points.

He said: "Scoring the goal right before half-time really gave Dunfermline a lift and made it harder for us.

"It was hard to take because I felt the first half was very even. The ball stuck in the mud and that gave Stevie Crawford the chance to score, but he took it well.

"Javier had a back problem and we discussed it at half-time. He said he wanted to play on so we gave him a few minutes, but he had to come of and that gave Dave his chance.

"He’s disappointed himself in the way the goal went in. The ball bounced out off his knee but the alertness of Stevie Crawford was just as important."