Martindale taking nothing for granted after emphatic win
David Martindale did not feel Livingston gained revenge on St Johnstone for last season’s Betfred Cup final defeat – despite running out 3-0 winners at Mcdiarmid Park on Saturday.
First-half goals from Odin Bailey and Bruce Anderson and another midway through the second half from Scott Pittman helped Livingston record their first away goals and win of the season.
He said: “There’s not really any revenge, that result got dropped two hours after the full-time whistle as they are the kind of results you want to try to forget about.”
Livingston’s sole success before the weekend victory was a surprising 1-0 win against Celtic last month.
Many would look at the result as a turning point, but Martindale, pictured inset, does not believe in results kickstarting seasons and said that his side prefer to take it game by game.
He said: “I don’t believe in turning points and all that to be honest.
“Does that mean we’re going to go on and win eight games? I don’t think you’re going to do that in the Premier League this season as it’s a tough, tough league.
“Hearts, Hibs and Dundee United have improved and kicked on, so probably with the teams who’re spending between £40 million and £55m it’s going to be difficult for anyone to say the season’s turned around.
“We try to take every game in isolation.
“I’ve spoken about it before, but we had a fantastic season last season where we won 12 games of football in the Premier League and that really puts it into perspective for me.
“You’re going to lose more games than you win, so it’s probably better to deal with every game as it comes.
“The boys can take fantastic credit from their performance today, though.” St Johnstone manager Callum Davidson warned his side had to get back to their normal standards quickly ahead of next Saturday’s trip to Celtic Park.
“Don’t do the same things again, it’s as simpleasthat,”hetoldsaintstv.
“Learn from it, make sure we know what we are doing.
“Since I have been here, we have set high standards, what we want to do right throughout the team, and we didn’t do that. And it’s disappointing because we had a good support.”