Livingston v Inverness Caledonian Thistle 22/10/05 KO 3pm
This weekend ICT face the trip to Livingston to take on the team propping up the SPL. Craig Brewster will be looking to maintain the club’s decent away form which has seen the team fail to pick up any away points on only one occasion, Celtic at Parkhead. Although the home form needs a lot of improvement, the manager and players can take a lot from the way they battled back against Aberdeen last week.
Livingston will be looking at picking up their first win of the campaign although their major issue seems to be scoring goals and coming up against one of the most solid defences in the SPL you wouldn’t favour them rectifying that on Saturday afternoon!
Last season Inverness and Livi shared the spoils each recording 2 wins 1 home and 1 away. Livi were fortunate enough to come up against ICT in the first game of last season where the occasion got the better of the players and they were rightly beaten 3-0. The second meeting of the season was at Pittodrie where ICT, having remembered how to play football, strolled to a 2-0 victory. The next win over Livi came much easier to Inverness seeing them hit 4 at Almondvale. After the split Livi found themselves visiting the new Tulloch Caledonian Stadium for the first time and sneaked a 1-0 victory, not a pretty game by any means!
So we come to the first meeting of the two clubs this season and firm favourites have to be ICT. The visitors are boosted by the fact that player/manager Craig Brewster comes back into contention after serving a one-match suspension, he will more than likely replace Craig Dargo to partner Dennis Wyness upfront. At the time of writing it is unsure the fitness situation regarding Grant Munro, he missed the Aberdeen game with a knee injury although has taken part in some training this week. Stuart Golabek will be missing due to a groin problem and long-term casualties Liam Keogh and Roy McBain are still not fit.
Livingston are expected to go with the same team that were narrowly defeated by Motherwell last week although player/manager Paul Lambert will make a late decision regarding his fitness and contention for a place.
Site prediction 2-0 to ICT
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