DYLAN DELIVERS
Lions’ king thankful to boss after target drills pay off with big winner
THE celebrations were significant. Special thanks, it appears, from a player to a head coach for advice and work on the training field based on strengthening a weak spot.
In David Martindale’s opinion, if matchwinner Dylan Bahamboula carries on doing what he tells him, he won’t be scoring goals at the Tony Macaroni for long.
The former France youth cap, who plays with his mother’s maiden name ‘Moyo’ on the back of his shirt, made the difference here with a deflected goal that gave the home side a perfectly deserved victory.
There were reasons, though, why he made a bee-line for the technical area to enjoy it. Martindale spent the week working with him — and the rest of the players — on his shooting, on getting efforts on target. Indeed, he says he has been working on that with Bahamboula, now a Congo internationalist, ever since he arrived north in the summer following a spell at Oldham Athletic.
And the manager is convinced that, despite being 27 years of age now, the player can still fashion a big future for himself in the game after failing to live up to the promise of his youth as a product of the AS Monaco academy.
‘I think Callum (Davidson) will probably be a wee bit disappointed at the manner of the goal, but we took the game to St Johnstone,’ said Martindale.
‘We spent nearly every training day this week working on hitting target. Over the last two or three games, we have got into some great areas and not hit the target. I speak to the boys about it.
‘We worked on Dylan coming in onto his right foot and Joel (Nouble) coming in from the other side.
‘I don’t know if you noticed, but Dylan ran straight over to the dugout. Since the guy came up here to Scotland, that is what I have been working with him on, to be honest. Honestly, he has so much ability.
‘If he applies himself properly and gets his numbers up, I don’t think he will be here very long.
‘He is a really exciting player when he is in the opposition half. He makes me very nervous when he is in my half, if I am honest, but it is about him playing in the right areas.’
Pretty early on, it looked like being one of those days for Saints, who travelled without striker Nicky Clark due to his wife being in labour. Stevie May sent a shot wide within 15 seconds and was then denied by a fine block from onrushing goalkeeper Shamal George after Nicky Devlin had been well short with a headed passback.
When James Brown smacked the underside of the crossbar with a thunderous drive and saw the ball bounce down and out, the fear grew that a long day for the visitors lay in prospect.
‘I don’t think the shot was in,’ said Martindale. ‘I’ve watched it back.’
In truth, Saints never recovered from seeing those early efforts go abegging and never really looked as dangerous again. The only real positive for them to take from the day was that David Wotherspoon made a late appearance off the bench in his first outing since last November after knee surgery.
Substitute Ali Crawford did head straight at the keeper amid a rally at the death, but Saints deserved nothing — and he never showed the conviction required to steal them an undeserved point anyway.
Livi duly began to work their way into things after surviving those early scares and, having already had the ball in the net from a Kurtis Guthrie effort flagged for offside, they took the lead in rather fortuitous circumstances 10 minutes before the interval.
Nouble held the ball up on the left-hand side and laid it back into the path of Bahamboula. He cut inside and released a right-footed shot that took a wicked deflection off Andy Considine, who scored an own goal against Celtic last weekend, and wrongfooted keeper Remi Matthews to bulge the net.
Livingston continued to enjoy by far the best of the game after the interval, although proper chances were very much at a premium.
Jamie Murphy forced George into a pretty straightforward save with a speculative effort from distance before Matthews kept Saints in the encounter just after the hour mark.
Stephen Kelly, making his first start for the home side, looked to have lost momentum after breaking over the halfway line on the counter-attack. However, having checked back to weigh up his options, he slipped in Jason Holt with an excellent reverse pass.
Holt saw the whites of Matthews’ eyes. His shot then rattled off his legs and went to safety.
Nouble did get the ball into the net with 11 minutes to go with a header from a Kelly cross that evaded the desperate grasp of Matthews on the goal-line, but the striker was penalised for a push on Ryan McGowan.
‘In the first half, we had chances,’ said St Johnstone boss Davidson. ‘The first goal is always crucial against Livingston and they get it from a deflection. Then, we lost our way in the second half for 15 or 20 minutes.
‘It wasn’t until the last 20 minutes that we started to apply a bit of pressure, but, by that time, it is tough to chase the game.’
Each 1-0 of Livingston’s last three wins Premiership have been 1-0 home successes. Livi beat St Johnstone, Kilmarnock and Hearts