Livingston assistant manager Neil Hastings admits the loss of some influential players makes it feel like the end of a cycle at the club - but insists they can come back stronger next season.
Captain Nicky Devlin will make a move to Aberdeen while defender Jack Fitzwater as well as midfielder Stephane Omeonga will depart West Lothian, while the Lions are expected to sell winger Joel Nouble.
But he’s adamant the hours upon hours spent searching for new arrivals will reap rewards as the club enter an unprecedented sixth straight season in the top flight.
He commented: “There will be changes this summer. When you are at a club like this then you will get to a cycle with a group of players.
“Last season, most of the boys were out of contract left because they wanted more game time but going into this summer we have boys out of contract who have played a lot of minutes for us.
“We have been working away on the recruitment side of things, so there will be a few fresh faces coming in to the football club.”
The 31-year-old admits it has been a case of perhaps not realising just what they have at the club until they have to look for replacements - especially in the loss of their skipper.
He said: “Nicky Devlin has been fantastic and I think he has played every game for us since I came back in January 2022.
“He is fantastic on and off the park and is a proper captain. He has been excellent. Individually he has performed at the top level and that’s why he has the chance to move on.
“He will be a massive miss for us and is a really great guy. When he moves on we wish him the best unless he is playing against Livi.”
He added: “Trying to replace someone like Nicky will be hard. Sometimes people are taken for granted until you lose them.
“Now we are looking for someone to fill that void, on the ball, off the ball and off the park. It is part of football, people move on, so the manager has a lot of targets to fill that void.”
The Lions went through a run of poor form at the wrong time as they missed out on a place in the top six in the final pre-split fixture for the second consecutive campaign.
That in turn cost them any hopes of reaching Europe for just the second time in the club’s history.
While that is a disappointment and Hastings concedes that the club have ‘underachieved’ this term, he admits everyone would have jumped at the chance to not be involved in a relegation battle over the final few games.
He commented: “If someone had offered us this position at the start of the season we would have taken it.
“Our first target is to stay in the league, we have done that. We are frustrated not to be in the top six and we feel like we have underachieved a little bit but we’ve gone into the final few games without the pressure of going down and we have to take credit for that.”
