Championship title 'out of Livingston's hands' as David Martindale targets second ahead of Falkirk clash

David Martindale admits that the Championship title and automatic promotion back to the Premiership is out of Livingston’s hands as he targets second spot.

The West Lothian side host league leaders Falkirk at Almondvale on Tuesday night with 11 points separating them at the summit of the second tier.

A win for Livi, who are in third but joint on points with second-placed Ayr United and have a game in hand over the top two, would cut the gap to eight points.

However, with only six games remaining after that, and five for Falkirk, Martindale believes that the title will still be heading to John McGlynn and the Bairns.

Speaking to STV Sport on Monday, he said: “Automatic promotion is out of our hands, so it’s just a game of football that we have to try to win and pick three points up.

“At this moment in time automatic promotion is out of our hands, it’s with Falkirk, but we want to have any chance of finishing second we need to pick up three points tomorrow night.

“Finishing second is within our grasp and in our hands, so we need to go and win the next game of football in-front of us and that just happens to be Falkirk.

“It’s important we go and do that, but I still think if we win tomorrow then it remains a big ask to go and get automatic promotion from that point, because I do think it’s obviously in Falkirk’s hands.

“So, it’s a big game and we need to focus and concentrate on ourselves. We have quite a good record against them this season, I think we’ve picked up seven and they’ve picked up one, so we come out on top on the head-to-head and hopefully we will come out on top tomorrow.”

A win for Falkirk on Tuesday would all but secure them top-flight football next season, as they would then go into the last five games with a commanding 14-point lead.

But Martindale insists he isn’t putting too much thought into that as he focuses on his team and keeping up their good recent record against McGlynn’s side.

“Realistically I think the league title is Falkirk’s to lose, so I’m not going to sit here and tell lies. Do I think automatic promotion is a realistic probability at this time? No, I don’t, even if we go and win tomorrow night it will still be extremely difficult.

“There’s not many games left, so that makes it difficult.

“How I’ve always worked is to focus on the next game and I don’t put too much relevance on what impact that will have on the season.

“Our next game is Falkirk here, we have a good head-to-head ratio against them so we need to go and do that.

“Within our grasp is second place, we have that in our hands and within our capabilities so we have to go and focus on that.

“We know Falkirk are coming here thinking ‘we can just about secure the league title with a win’ so this game will bring different challenges and a different dynamic.”