Livingston boss Gary Holt happy as change of tactics brings first win in ten games

Chris Erskine’s first-half goal was enough to secure all three points at the Tony Macaroni Arena. Livi switched from playing three centre-backs to a back-four and Holt was satisfied that his attempts to counter Kilmarnock’s strengths had worked just as he had hoped.

He said: “We changed our system and personnel, and had a gameplan to go and try to hurt them when we had the ball. And we did that. You analyse how the opposition play and set up your team accordingly. We looked to see if we had the personnel to make the changes we wanted and we did. And we then looked to see if we could change it again during the game if it wasn’t going our way – and we could. You weigh up everything and this time it’s worked.”

Holt was forced into an early change when wing-back Ricki Lamie went off with an injury and the manager revealed it was still too soon to make a diagnosis. He added: “The physio said it’s something to do with his hamstring but we’ll have a look and see how he is.”

Killie manager Steve Clarke admitted he would need to “go away and reflect” after his side’s defeat. The result handed Kilmarnock a third defeat in just six days and extended their winless streak to seven matches. With another difficult fixture looming against in-form Motherwell on Wednesday, Clarke admitted he would have to give that proposition some serious thought.

He said: “As a manager, when you’ve lost your third game in a week, you just want to go away and reflect on the performance. We have a tough game against Motherwell in midweek and it would be nice to get a win.

“But we don’t shout too loudly when things go well for us and we won’t get down now when we’ve had a bad week.”