ROBBO GETS LIONS’ SHARE
Well and Livi quick on the draw but can’t land the killer blow
STEPHEN ROBINSON wanted his side to be streetwise. Gary Holt called on his men to get back to their ugly best.
Both managers got what they wanted but not what they needed after sharing the points at Fir Park.
Motherwell and Livi are still chasing their first wins of the season but it wasn’t for the want of trying. Or fighting. The pre-match demands from the gaffers made their mark. Livi tried to bully but Well refused to buckle.
Well young guns David Turnbull – edging back to his best after his long lay-off – and Allan Campbell notched either side of a Lyndon Dykes penalty to put the Fir Park side ahead at the interval.
But Alan Forrest pounced from close range with 20 minutes to go to snatch a deserved point.
Robinson resisted making sweeping changes, with Jordan White replacing Jake Hastie, while Livi boss Gary Holt benched Efe Ambrose and Nicky Devlin for Aaron TaylorSinclair and Forrest. New recruit Jason Holt was on the bench.
It would have been understandably if these two were a tad edgy after kicking off a new season with backto-back defeats.
It’s daft to get too worked up in August, but the sheer determination to get points on the board meant it was all guns blazing from the start.
First it was Livi on the charge, with Campbell bravely blocking Craig
Sibbald’s fierce drive. Then Well responded – and grabbed the lead.
It was sheer class from Turnbull as he glided past his man on the edge of the box and managed to drill a shot through the crowd and into the bottom corner.
The advantage lasted barely three minutes though. Taylor-Sinclair floated the ball in to the box and ex-Livi man Ricki Lamie gave his old pals a helping hand by holding his arm in the air. Dykes slammed the spot-kick down the middle. It was back to the battle – and it was pretty fierce.
Ciaron Brown limped off after getting clattered, Bevis Mugabe and Forrest had a shuddering collision and there were hefty challenges going in all over the pitch.
It suited Livi. They were much more like their old battering-ram selves and Well were becoming frustrated.
Scott Robinson was a whisker away from getting on the end of
Forrest’s back-post cross, after he brilliantly plucked a long diagonal ball out of the air and beat his man.
Dykes bumped a few defenders out of his way soon after but couldn’t get enough on his dig to trouble keeper Trevor Carson.
Yet it was Well who surged ahead when Campbell got the break of the ball after the Livi backline stuttered in the box and his finish into the far corner was pinpoint.
Sibbald nearly struck back straight away, but Carson clawed out his low rocket and Holt must have been wondering how the heck his side were down at the break.
Well looked to hit Livi on the counter in the second period and were a threat when they did get out.
Jordan White hooked a half-volley from Turnbull’s cross just wide and Mugabe wasn’t far off with a glancing header before Sherwin Seedorf clipped over Robby McCrorie but Jon Guthrie got back to hook off the line.
Just as Well had pounced when Livi were on top, the visitors turned the tables on 70 minutes.
Sibbald was the main danger throughout and he found space to force Carson into a smart stop.
Moments later the Well keeper paw out another Sibbald drive – only for Forrest to bury the rebound.
Dykes nearly nabbed a third but he got crowded out at the last second when through on goal as Livi did the late chasing but both sides had shown the good, the bad and the ugly.