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Daily Record
Sport
Callum Carson

Livingston boss set to get the boots back on to solve club's penalty pain

Livingston boss David Martindale says there’s an easy solution to his side’s penalty problems.

He’s going to start taking them himself.

The gaffer joked that he’s ready to put the boots back on after Nicky Devlin’s double miss against Motherwell on Monday made it five consecutive unsuccessful spot-kicks for the Lions.

Incredibly, they’ve missed eight in total this season while having burned through five separate penalty takers.

While Martindale quipped that he’ll be taking matters into his own hands he confessed he doesn’t know how to fix the issue as they prepare for a trip north to face Ross County on Saturday.

The head coach commented: “I’ll be putting my boots on next. I’ve never missed from 12 yards. It’s 12 yards unopposed. We’ve tried everyone this season.

“That’s far too many missed opportunities via penalty-kicks and we’ve actually been working on them.

“Nicky was 10 out of 10 in training the last time we did it so I was fairly confident but there’s just been too many missed opportunities.”

He added: “I was going to get Andrew Shinnie on the second one but I didn’t want to change the taker and then he maybe misses so I kind of let the boys decide that on the park.

“Nicky was the designated taker going into the game. We have done a bit of work on it at training but that’s clearly not worked so I won’t be doing that again.”

Meanwhile the gaffer says he was impressed by Steven Bradley's debut with the 20-year-old impressing as a half-time sub against the Well.

He said: “I’m really pleased with him. He shifts the ball well and I was happy with his contribution.

“I wasn’t a million miles away from starting him but I made the right decision to bring him on so early and get him game-time."

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