LIVINGSTON defender Jack Fitzwater relished his side’s 2-1 win over Aberdeen on Tuesday evening – precisely because of the hard-fought nature of the victory.
The centre-half gave the Lions the lead at the Tony Macaroni Arena early on as he gathered a loose ball from a corner and drilled the ball home for his first of the season, and the hosts’ lead was soon doubled when Sean Kelly scored from the penalty spot following an intervention from VAR.
The video assistant was involved further still, directing referee Nick Walsh to the pitchside monitor on another two occasions. Both resulted in spot-kicks for the Dons; the first was scuppered by Bojan Miovski, the second emphatically struck by Luis “Duk” Lopes to halve the deficit.
The visitors enjoyed plenty of the ball in the second half as they fashioned chance after chance, and only some resolute defending from Livi ensured David Martindale’s side claimed the three points.
It was the sort of performance that has been typical of the West Lothian outfit in recent years and Fitzwater, for one, thoroughly enjoyed the backs-to-the-wall win.
“In the first half we were much the better side,” he insisted. “We were really good and forced them into mistakes and deservedly went 2-0 up.
“In the second half the momentum was with them. We expected them to come out fast and to be fair to them, they had a game plan and really caused us problems.
“But to a man I thought we were excellent. We gave up the ball a lot and we can learn from that going forward.
“These wins can mean the most, when you’re backs against the wall – especially in the last 20 minutes when they are throwing everything at it. We stood up to it and we deserved the three points for the character we showed.”
Aberdeen defender Liam Scales, meanwhile, believes he and his team-mates can take some positives from the defeat.
“We were so poor the first half an hour but the last 60 we were really good and it was one of the best performances of the season,” said the Celtic loanee. “We lost the game because of the first 30 minutes so it’s hard to be positive.
“After having so many chances it is tough to take. Livingston are very good at defending their box and they have a good record at home of going ahead and seeing it out.
“They have done it against the Old Firm, so we knew that was one of their strengths. It’s hard to take but we only have ourselves to blame.”
