Livingston

Livingston manager David Martindale has been addressing the media before his side's Scottish Premiership return against Kilmarnock.

Here are the key points from his press conference:

• Martindale says his players must take "a lot of credit" for being unbeaten in the league against non-Old Firm clubs this season.

• The manager said there will be an internal review after the first 11 games of the season to see if there is need for adaptation. It's a "constant evolution".

• Martindale said he'll "never walk out on this club," while adding he's in "no rush" to sign a contract, despite knowing he probably should.

• He believes his opposite number on Saturday, Derek McInnes, is "one of the best managers in Scotland".

• The Livi boss is expecting a tough game against a Killie side who are "hard to break down and pose an attacking threat".

• Martindale added Danny Lloyd, Cristian Montano and Mikey Devlin have all had a good training week and should be in contention for the trip to Rugby Park.

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• After their 2-0 win in May last season, Kilmarnock are looking to earn back-to-back Scottish top-flight victories over Livingston for the first time since February 2006.

• Livingston had won their previous five meetings with Kilmarnock, before that 2-0 defeat at the end of last term.

• Only St Johnstone (eight) are on a longer run without a win in the Scottish Premiership than Kilmarnock (seven – D4 L3). It’s Killie’s longest winless run in the competition since March 2021 (10 games).

• After their 2-0 win over Motherwell, Livingston are looking to pick up back-to-back league victories for the first time since January of last season. The last time the Lions won consecutive league games without conceding was in September 2022 – the second game of which was a 1-0 win over Kilmarnock.

• Against Motherwell last time out, Bruce Anderson scored his 25th Scottish Premiership goal, 20 of which have been for Livingston – now the outright most of any player for the club in the competition since their promotion in 2018 (Scott Pittman 19).

Livingston travel to Rugby Park on Saturday to face Kilmarnock following the international break.

They beat Motherwell 2-0 in their last outing and David Martindale will be wanting a similar result this weekend.

If you were the manager, would you make any changes? Pick your XI here.

Stuart Barrie, Livingston fan

The international break (huge well done to Lyndon Dykes and the boys on qualifying) gives you a good chance to assess where you are and what can be changed moving forward.

With eight games played Livi are sitting pretty in sixth with two wins and four draws. The two defeats came at the hands of the Old Firm behemoths which isn’t too shabby, and those games account for seven of the 12 goals against.

Despite losing Jack Fitzwater this season we’ve been solid defensively and Mikey Devlin has been a great addition. He’s been missing of late so getting him back will help shore up the defence.

James Penrice has been brilliant playing on the left in defence since Cristian Montano got injured. Finding a way to get Penrice and Montano playing together is going to be a conundrum for the boss David Martindale to solve as both provide a strong attacking threat.

It’s not quite the puzzle of having Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney together but I think we can have a strong left flank that’s also an offensive weapon if we can work this out.

Perhaps one of the brightest spots is the form of Bruce Anderson, our top goal-scorer with six goals. He’s been really sharp this season. Our owner will hopefully be finding a way of securing Anderson beyond this season when his deal is up.

A lot of Livi fans are saying we’ve not seen the best of big Joel Nouble this season too, he’s not been quite the same threat as before so maybe resting up a week or two will help him find his form.

Daniel Mackay was sensational in our last game, so I’d like to see him get a run in the team. Maybe we could be utilising Stephen Bradley better too. He’s just been called up to the Scotland U21s so he’s clearly a player. The former Hibs winger has been great in flashes but tends to fade so if he can find consistency it could be the ammunition for Anderson to get even more gaols.

Sharpening up our attack will help us find a way to convert a few draws into wins then that will really help us kick on this season.

It’s still all about survival for us but if we can keep going as we are then maybe we can allow ourselves to dream of that elusive top-six place.

Livingston's Luiyi de Lucas started at the heart of Dominican Republic's three-man defence as they hammered Barbados 5-0 away from home in the CONCACAF Nations League.

The 29-year-old centre-half earned his 11th cap as his side remain second, three points behind Nicaragua, who won 3-0 away to Montserrat, in Group B of League B.

Amid Livingston's more-than-solid start to the Premiership season lie some concerning defensive stats.

The 12 goals conceded by David Martindale's side is the highest total in the division along with Hibs and Ross County.

And the fact Livi have an expected goals against of just 8.46 suggests they have been shipping strikes they should be keeping out

Defensive sturdiness has been a foundation of the club's ability to punch above its weight in the top flight in recent years, especially as they don't blow teams away.

At the top end of the pitch, Livi are slightly underperforming their XG of 8.68, with eight goals scored in eight league games, while their 22 shots on target is the third lowest, and only Dundee have had fewer than the Lions' 134 touches in the opposition box.

Striker Joel Nouble's importance to the team is highlighted in the fact only two players - Celtic's Daizen Maeda and Matty Kennedy of Kilmarnock - trump his haul of winning possession in the opposition half eight times, while he also ranks highly for dribbles completed (14).

Another snapshot of Liv's tenacity is that Luiyi de Lucas and Jamie Brandon are league leaders in tackles with 25, while De Lucas' 18 interceptions and Jason Holt's 73 times possession won are also the highest of any Premiership player.

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Stuart Barrie, Livingston fan

Going into the international break and how does the Livi report card read? Just three defeats - all against the big two - in 14 competitive fixtures so far this season. That’s absolutely brilliant from us, outstanding really.

It’s also fair to say Motherwell have had the better of us in recent tussles, some they have outplayed us and some they were downright jammy to get points. So it was all the sweeter to beat a Motherwell team performing at a good level.

We had our new owner John McIlvogue at the game and he earned a lot of goodwill from the fans with the kind offer of a free hot drink on a day that would give even Judith Ralston nightmares.

The game did turn on the sending off, however we were still the better team 11 v 11 by a slight margin. I felt for Lennon Miller as he’s clearly a special talent, we used to see him at games when he was a young lad and his dad Lee played for us. He’ll learn and bounce back from this and if he wants to come play for us like his dad, we’d be delighted to make that happen.

As for us, it was probably our best performance of the season. Every player did their jobs well. Bruce Anderson, rightly, got the player of the match and Jason Holt and Scott Pittman were excellent too.

The surprise of the day was Dan MacKay, he’s not started yet but did enough for me to be on the teamsheet for the next match. Anderson and MacKay will trouble any defence if they can keep fit and keep playing at this level.

It was also pleasing to see Sean come out on top in the battle of the Kelly brothers when he calmly slotted a penalty past his sibling in the ‘Well goal. We didn’t put a penalty away for what seemed like 100 attempts, but now we’ve scored two in two weeks, it turns out it’s easy to score penalties.

Our next game is away to Killie for the El Plastico. They are really hard to beat on their patch and, who knows, they may have a new manager if the Derek McInnes to Ibrox rumours turn out to be true.

I’ve seen a few Rangers fans mention our manager David Martindale as a good candidate and some unbelievably turned up their noses. I’ve said many times Davie deserves and has more than earned a shot at a so-called big club.

I find it incredulous that he’s not top of the list of every club in Scotland, but I am delighted he's still with us.

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Kenny Crawford, BBC Sport Scotland

Livingston striker Bruce Anderson is hoping he can stay fit and show people "what he can really do" after scoring in his side's 2-0 win over Motherwell.

The 25-year-old scored his sixth goal of the season before Sean Kelly's penalty sealed all three points for David Martindale's side.

"Hopefully, I can just keep hitting the back of the net and seeing where it takes me," he said.

"I think when teams go down to 10 men they naturally fall back, so it’s actually a wee bit harder for strikers to find space.

"I’m obviously just delighted to get a goal and three points.

"I thought Dan [Mackay] was brilliant today. He just kept running and running and, as soon as he gets to the byline, I knew he was going to whip it into the box.

"For me, it was just about getting that half-yard and I managed to sort of lose my man with my movement and, after that, it’s about getting contact on the ball and thankfully for me it’s gone in the back of the net.

"Here’s hoping I can stay fit, get a run of games and then hopefully everyone can see what I can really do."

Livingston goalscorers Sean Kelly and Bruce Anderson have made Jonathan Sutherland's team of the week.

The Sportscene presenter selected "consistent performer" Kelly and "shining light up front" Anderson following their performance's against Motherwell.

Image source, Opta

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David Martindale expects to have talks with new Livingston owner John McIlvogue this week about his future as team manager.

McIlvogue was quoted last week saying he intends to secure the 49-year-old on a long-term contract.

"It's nice to hear that the people that are coming into the club value myself," Martindale told BBC Scotland.

"I've been vocal in the past that this club has helped change my life and, if they want me at the football club, I'll be at the football club."

Martindale pointed out that the takeover was completed during a busy fixture schedule.

"I've briefly had a coffee with John, but it was in the company of other employees - just to touch base, nothing formal in terms of myself," he revealed.

"It's international break and we had to get the games out of the road."

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Daniel MacKay has told those who thought Motherwell's Lennon Miller was unfairly sent off in Livingston's 2-0 win on Saturday: "I'm through on goal and I'm not falling down for the sake of it."

The visitors' teenage midfielder got his marching orders on the stroke of half-time with the match still goalless.

"I've taken my touch across him and I'm ready to go through on goal," 22-year-old MacKay told BBC Scotland. "I would never go down in a situation like that if he's not clipped me and he's clipped the inside of my foot and I've gone down."

MacKay would go on to set up Bruce Anderson for the opening goal shortly after the break.

"It helped when they were down to 10 men and we were able to get at them more in wide areas and there was more space for me to get in behind them," the on-loan Hibernian winger said.

"Bruce said to me before the game - put it across the goal and he'd be there and thankfully he was. It was something we worked on all week, so it's good to see it out on the park."

It set up Livingston for their first home league win of the season.

"We obviously had a difficult start to the season," MacKay added. "The fixtures we were given, they were most of the top six for the first few games, so we did well to pick up points that maybe last year we wouldn't have.

"Hopefully this will be the start of a run for us."

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A first win since August for Livingston.

What did you make of the performance? How can this display be replicated more regularly?

Let us know.

Livingston manager David Martindale: "I think the clean sheet is the most pleasing aspect. I thought we were very good in the game, even when it was 11 v 11. Motherwell come in good form, but I think we got the game plan spot on.

"Obviously, they go down to 10. I'm not going to lie, that makes it easier for us, but we took our two goals well. We controlled a large majority of the second half, as you should against 10 men."

Asked what he makes of being in the top six, he says: "The league will pivot so much this season. I really don't read too much into it, to be honest.

"Dan [MacKay] gives you that raw pace in wide areas," he says. "He's been really patient waiting for his opportunity, but he was a big player for us today.

"I thought Brucey [Anderson} did everything today. I thought he was brilliant. All-round game, great. It's about him getting that consistency."

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Kenny Crawford, BBC Sport Scotland at the Tony Macaroni Arena

Davie Martindale chopped and changed his side to find something he felt would work, and it did, albeit with the help of a one-man advantage in the second half.

If he can keep Bruce Anderson fit for a whole season he will have a striker who delivers 15-20 goals. A full-speed Dan MacKay is thrilling to watch as well.

The results show four losses on the bounce for Motherwell, but in truth that’s harsh on them. Three of them have been one-goal defeats, two against the Old Firm, and this loss came after a sending off.

There will be no panic at Fir Park as Stuart Kettlewell seeks to turn the tide in a fortnight.

Daniel MacKay also impressed, but Bruce Anderson showed his quality with an instructive finish.

His display only reaffirmed just how important the diminutive striker is for David Martindale's side.

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Unhappy with the performance in their 1-1 draw with St Johnstone last time out, Livingston manager David Martindale makes four changes to his starting line-up.

In come Luiyi de Lucas, Daniel Mackay, Stephen Kelly and Scott Pittman in place of Tom Parkes, Andrew Shinnie, Jamie Brandon and Mo Sangare.

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Image source, Opta

Livingston: George, de Lucas, Obileye, Sean Kelly, Mackay, Holt, Pitman, Penrice, Stephen Kelly, Anderson, Nouble.

Substitutes: Parkes, Brandon, Bradley, Sangare, Shinnie, Guthrie, Hamilton, Ledingham, Lawal. Motherwell: Subs:

Motherwell: Kelly, McGinn, Mugabi, Casey, O'Donnell, Paton, Slattery, Spencer, Miller, Bair, Spittal.

Substitutes: Gent, Oxborough, Zdravkovski, Shaw, Blaney, Luca Ross, Max Ross, Souare, Wilkinson.

Image source, Opta

Livingston manager David Martindale has some unspecified fitness doubts. Mikey Devlin is fit but Martindale might not risk him. Michael Nottingham (Achilles) and Cristian Montano (calf) are back running.

Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell expects one unnamed player to shake off a knock. Strikers Mika Biereth (knee) and Jon Obika (hamstring) remain out alongside defender Calum Butcher (foot).

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