Toothless Livi brought result on themselves
Livingston manager Davie Martindale felt that, for the third game in a row, his side have thrown away points that could have seen them occupying fourth place in the Premiership table.
Yesterday, sloppy defending and failure to provide a cutting edge to some promising approach play left them on the wrong side of a 1-0 result.
“I know why we didn’t take anything from it – one moment of schoolboy defending,” he said.
“First contact we don’t do enough with it. Then we’re not on the second contact. That’s why we lose the game.
“When you have so much of the ball it can sometimes be a problem – you switch off.
“We dominated large spells of the game. Shots, corners, everything. But if you don’t defend properly you’re not going to win.
“It’s not good enough. Possession is a stat, a nice stat, but it doesn’t win you games of football if you don’t defend your box properly and don’t take your chances at the other end.
“It’s not a great combination for picking points up and that’s where we’ve found ourselves in the last few games.”
Martindale believed County’s Keith Watson could have been sent off for a lunge at Joel Nouble in the first half but refused to blame the referee for the outcome.
“I could say County defended their 18-yard box well but they actually defended their six-yard box well because we had so much of the ball.
“But we’ve got to have a long, hard look at ourselves. Whatever way you sugar-coat it, you’ve thrown away points.
“We should be sitting with at least three extra points from the Motherwell game, St Mirren and this one.
“I need to change what I’m doing and look at what I’m doing because it’s not working. That’s it stripped back.”