David Martindale says Livingston 'owe fans a big performance' as top six fight heats up

David Martindale says his Livingston team “owe the fans” a big performance on Saturday as they look to keep themselves in contention for a top half finish.

The West Lothian side are a point behind six placed Hibs as they prepare to host St Johnstone in their penultimate game before the split.

After St Johnstone, Livi travel to a relegation threatened Dundee United side who will be fighting for their Premiership lives at the bottom of the table.

Hibs on the other hand will host Edinburgh rivals Hearts this weekend before finishing off with a game in Perth against Callum Davidson’s Saints.

And after two straight 3-0 defeats away at St Mirren and Motherwell, Martindale is looking for a massive improvement this weekend.

He said: “We will have to go out and apply ourselves better than we have done in previous games, so I’m under no illusions how hard it’s going to be.

“I think we have been quite vocal about that since the start of the season and I think probably from third place down, the consistency is what has been missing from most squads, in terms of from third down to 12th it is the consistency and the team that can put the most consistent runs together jumps up the table.

“We have been fairly consistent in our approach and I would probably include up to matchday 22, from matchday 23 until now there has been inconsistencies that have come into our game.

“We are sitting on a better points total than the same stage last year, but we’ve hit a bit of a bump on the road of late and that is something we are looking to go and rectify.

“We owe the fans a big performance as well because it has been a tough couple of weeks for travelling fans, they pay their hard-earned money to follow this football team and to be fair the first half hours of both games we have probably let them down, myself included.”