The Livingston tactics which helped them beat Hibs explained

With back-to-back post-split wins, Livingston are in the driving seat to finish seventh in the Premiership which will bring the most amount of prize money the club can now earn.

On Saturday, they defeated Hibs 1-0 at the Tony Macaroni Arena thanks to a second-half strike from “living legend” Scott Pittman on the day he became the club’s record top-flight appearance holder, taking over from Oscar Rubio.

There was, however, frustration amongst the home support in the first half as the visitors had a lot of the ball and space down the flanks.

"I thought we created enough chances in the first half but I thought we gave up possession in wide areas too easily,” Martindale said. “We allowed too many balls into our box. We were getting out there, in the press, then we were stopping two metres from the press and allowing the ball into the box. Fair play to the two centre halves but it was far too easy.

"I thought our full-backs could have been more aggressive in possession as well.”

Half-time message

Despite Hibs having more possession over the 90 minutes, a higher expected goals figure and 18 shots, it was Livingston who created the more threatening moments and earned their win thanks to a great pass-and-move goal which former Easter Road boss Shaun Maloney would have been proud of. It came during a spell after the break where Livingston were by far the better team following a half-time discussion.

"We started the second half very well," Martindale said. “For around 15-20 minutes of the second half I thought we were value for money.

Livingston boss David Martindale was happy with his team's reaction to the tactical tweaks in the win over Hibs. (Photo by Rob Casey / SNS Group)

"The message at half-time was stop giving up so much possession in wide areas and allowing the balls into the box. I thought we did that better in the second half and could we get our full-backs a wee bit more aggressive on the ball and that's what we did.

"We had to defend our own final third at times, we gave up territory because of the change of shape.

“They went from a 3-5-2 to the 3-4-2-1. It gave them the overloads in the middle of the park. They’ve got clever players, technical players who look after the ball. It probably took us 5-10 minutes to get to grips with that.

"I sacrificed one of my wingers. I went a double six, double eight to match up in the middle of the park and we got a wee grip of the game at that point.

Martindale added: “Hibs dominated large spells of the game but there were definitely spells in the first half where we looked a lot more threatening in terms of goal scoring chances. Hibs had a lot of possession, balls in the box but it was half chances. I don’t think Ivan had a lot to do.

"Hibs probably throw a wee bit more at it because they are losing the game that pushes us back. Then we got to grips with that and we looked quite dangerous on the counter attack.”