Martindale: More to come from Livingston after taking belief from strong start

David Martindale says Livingston are taking belief from their performances since their return to the Premiership, and insists there is “more to come” from his side.

The Almondvale club recorded their first clean sheet with a 0-0 draw with Aberdeen at Pittodrie on Saturday which leaves them with five points from their first five games.

And as they prepare for a trip to Dundee this weekend, Martindale says confidence in his squad is growing week by week following their return to the top-flight after a season in the Championship.

Speaking to the media on Wednesday, he said: “We’ve got a lot of Premiership players here, so they’ve been here before, but it’s the first time this group have played together in the Premiership.

“So I think week by week, game by game, point by point, the group should be taking a wee bit of belief from that.

“Personally, I feel there’s a lot more to come from the group.

“I think the boys were fairly happy coming down the road on the bus with a clean sheet.

“I think if it was 1-1 and you gave a goal away and it’s a bad goal, it probably puts a different aspect on the game.

“We had opportunities ourselves, limited, but we had opportunities ourselves so the bus was fairly positive and coming in Monday morning, the analysis was a fairly positive meeting.”

Dundee are second bottom of the table, two points ahead of Aberdeen as they look for their first league win of the season.

However, Martindale can see Steven Pressley’s mark coming through at the Tayside club.

He said: “They will pose a threat.

“I think they’ve got better week by week and I think, the longer Steven is in the building and working with players, I think you can definitely see his ideas coming through.

“They’re still sort of in a transitional phase in terms of a new manager and they’ve lost a lot of big players over the last 12 to 18 months, there’s no getting away from that.

“So they are slightly in a transitional phase, but week by week you can see them coming out of that transition, if that makes sense, and you can identify with Steven and the Dundee team, the Dundee shape, the Dundee players and what it is they’re trying to do.”