Evans hails Lions’ ability to cope without key players

By CALUM LESLIE
Published on 19/02/2013 12:00

LIVINGSTON boss Gareth Evans has hailed the strength in depth of his squad ahead of tonight’s First Division trip to Falkirk.

The West Lothian side beat Cowdenbeath 3-0 on Saturday without striker Marc McNulty and former Hibs coach Evans said it’s a good sign that his team can cope with injuries to first-team regulars.

He said: “We’ll hopefully get [McNulty] back soon, but if we can still score goals when he’s out the team then it’s a good sign. We’ll just try and put in good performances and win as many games as possible and see where that takes us.

“In the first half on Saturday we scored the three goals and I thought we did a professional job in the second half. The crowd would maybe have liked to see more goals but we were delighted with 3-0 after the two previous performances Cowdenbeath had, beating Dunfermline 4-2 and Falkirk 4-1.

“We knew it was going to be tough and if someone had said we’d win 3-0, we’d have taken it.”

Evans saw Saturday’s win as a timely boost, especially after Livi lost their first home game in the league since September the previous 
weekend. While the manager said the performance against 
Dumbarton the previous week was good, he admitted it was vital to put a result together to go with that on Saturday. He added: “The performance against Dumbarton was really good. But against Cowdenbeath, it was good again and we got a result.”

Fourth-place Livingston, 13 points behind leaders Morton with two games in hand, can go joint third with Dunfermline if they win tonight. Fifth-place Falkirk will be looking to close within three points of the Lions.