Livingston boss David Martindale hails squad after win over Kilmarnock

Manager David Martindale was full of praise for his squad that has been assembled at Livingston after his side dominated Kilmarnock to win 3-1 in the Premiership.

Joel Nouble flicked in a close-range header after he reacted first to a deflected cross to open the scoring before Bruce Anderson sent his intelligent finish across the face of goal to double the hosts’ lead inside the first 12 minutes.

The pick of the afternoon’s goals game courtesy of a sublime side-footed volley from Stephen Kelly as Livingston climbed to fourth in the league table.

Martindale said: “For a twenty-minute spell, we scored three goals and I thought the boys before that were fantastic, I think the first goal was 10 minutes and the third goal was 29 minutes – something along those lines.

“I thought the quality of the finishes and how we progressed the ball into the final third and what we did, the execution in the final third, was fantastic.

“It’s wee patterns of play we work on, get the ball on the box and wee Brucey (Anderson) is getting on the end of it, my number eight is then in the correct area for the third goal, so I’m really, really pleased with the goals we scored in the first half.

“As I said, and I’m not making excuses, I think I had the luxury but it’s a squad that we built and I’ve been on record saying that I think I’ve got two starting XIs, no matter who I play; I could drop most players on the team and replace them with a like-for-like player.”

For Kilmarnock boss Derek McInnes it was yet another away defeat for the Rugby Park side who are yet to pick up three points on the road in 90 minutes in their first season back in the top-flight from the Championship.

The Killie manager said: “Listen, I’ve got a high regard for Livingston and what they do but it was almost like we hadn’t done our homework on them, almost as if we didn’t know how to play against them.

“They come at you, they ask the question, and their front-three all enjoyed the game too much in the first period and Christ, we gave them a helping hand to get their goals there’s no two ways about it.

“I think they’ve put the ball in the box twice from two crosses and they’re 2-0 up and then we bring more pressure ourselves by making wrong decision for the third goal and all of a sudden, it’s a mountain to climb.

“We were far too passive, far too naive, and also lacking in real intelligence in how to play this time of game. We continually tried to play through them when we needed to go beyond them, we needed to bypass the press.”