Long-awaited victory boosts Livingston boss David Martindale

Posted Sunday, January 21, 2024 by PA

David Martindale hopes Livingston can take confidence from tasting victory for the first time in 14 games with their 2-1 Scottish Cup win over Raith Rovers.

The Lions are six points adrift at the bottom of the Premiership and have not won in the league since October.

But they are in the draw for the fifth round of the cup after Jamie Brandon cancelled out Jack Hamilton’s early opener for Raith and Dan MacKay’s header settled the tie in the 82nd minute.

Martindale was full of praise for his players.

He said: “I hope there is going to be a bump from it, momentum is huge in football.

“Results breed confidence. Hopefully the players can take some credit, I think we’ve played better and been beaten.

“If Raith had taken their chances early doors they might have been out of sight.

“I do think the players have to take huge credit.

“I thought we started the game unbelievably bad. We went a goal behind and were lucky not to be two behind. We got the penalty and missed that.

“At that point, it would have been really easy for the players to feel sorry for themselves, especially with the run we had been on.

“But, from that minute onwards, I think the players have to take huge credit. They found a way to win a game of football and they did that, nothing to do with Davie Martindale, the staff, tactics, formations.”

Livi won without the services of star attacker Joel Nouble, who Martindale revealed had been left out following a bid from a club in England.

He added: “I’ve had a wee bit of interest in Noubs from two teams in League One in England. There’s two teams in the Scottish Prem too.

“A club from down south put an offer in yesterday and it’s not a million miles away from where I think we need to be.

“I went back to them and explained that and said, ‘look if you tidy up that, tidy up that I reckon we can get this done’.

“I spoke to Joel, he was a bit disappointed that I was pulling him out of the squad but I felt it was unfair on him and potentially us.”

Meanwhile, Raith manager Ian Murray reckons his side should have won and hopes pushing top-flight opposition so hard will inspire them in their Championship title race with Dundee United.

Following a draw with Kilmarnock and defeat to Hibernian in the Viaplay Cup earlier in the campaign, he said: “I think days like this whet the appetite for where we want to be.

“Every time we’ve played Premiership sides this season it’s been really tight and once again we put so much into this one.

“We created a lot of chances and didn’t take them – some of the misses were unfortunate, some of them were poor.

“Against this higher level of opposition, though, you need to be more clinical.

“That’s the bottom line in cup competitions. We could have been ahead before we scored and then in the second-half I thought we were better than them.”