New Livi boss will inherit a backroom team
Livingston director John Ward insists the club’s new manager will have to work with the existing backroom team – including assistant manager, David Martindale.
The West Lothian outfit are looking for a successor to David Hopkin after the former Scotland midfielder rejected a new deal, just 11 days after guiding the Lions to promotion to the Premiership through the play-offs.
Former Celtic and Arsenal striker John Hartson, who is the club’s parttime striking coach, former Ross County boss Jim McIntyre, Jim Duffy and Danny Lennon are among those who have already been linked with the vacancy.
But Ward insists their next boss must accept that he will not be able to bring in his own staff.
Ward said: “We’ve had a discussions as a board, and we’ve had hundreds of names thrown at us. We have agents contacting us and been contacted individually with different names.
“We know what we’re looking for, someone who can come in and work with the current structure.
“David Martindale does a lot of the dayto-day work and we’ve got the likes of the physio and the fitness guys.
“I think it’s important to keep the set-up that got us promotion going. We’ve been working together for three years.
“So the board are very clear that we won’t be going after a guy who wants to bring half-a-dozen of the people he always works with.
“That’s not going to be the model we use here. We’ve enjoyed success with the team we’ve had and the structure we’ve had, and we want to try and keep that.
“The assistant manager is very good at recruiting players. That’s his forte, and the last thing we want to do is create a situation where he is alienated or sidelined.
“We need to make sure that everybody is happy and can work with whoever we bring in.”
Ward concedes an appointment could take up to a fortnight.
He added: “We’re open-minded. We’ll probably look for someone who is experienced, weigh up the pros and cons and discuss it.
“We also recognise that we’ll have a lot more media attention this year, and there will be days when it’s not going so well – and days when it is.”