Livingston boss David Martindale insisted his midweek quip about being “gutted” at Derek Adams leaving relegation rivals Ross County was not intended as a personal attack.
Martindale explained that he simply wanted the “unhappy environment” at the Dingwall club to fester as long as possible.
The Lions are six points adrift of the 11th-placed Staggies at the foot of the cinch Premiership.
In an interview with BBC Scotland after Wednesday night’s defeat by Kilmarnock, Martindale was asked how he viewed the departure of Adams, who rubbed people up the wrong way with some of his press conference comments during his ill-fated 12-game stint in charge.
The Livi boss smiled wryly: “My honest thoughts? I’m gutted, there you go.”
At his press conference on Friday morning ahead of Saturday’s Scottish Cup trip to Championship side Partick, Martindale expanded on his response to Adams’ County exit.
“I made comments after the Kilmarnock game that probably in hindsight were a wee bit disrespectful to Derek but I want to put that into context,” he said.
“I think it’s common knowledge Derek was unhappy being at Ross County, I think his previous press conferences tell you that. Scottish football’s a goldfish bowl and it’s common knowledge the players were unhappy.
READ MORE: Kettlewell relishing 'proper' Morton vs Motherwell cup tie
“So you had an unhappy manager and unhappy players and of course it is better for Livingston for that unhappy environment to remain.
“Ross County having unhappy players in the changing room and an unhappy manager who is perceived to not want to be at Ross County, I would rather that situation remained. I’m not going to sit here and tell lies.
“So I was gutted that they made that change, or Derek made that change, because ultimately the more negativity at Ross County the better it’s going to be for ourselves. But I need to focus on Livingston rather than Ross County.
“That’s just to give my comments after the game a wee bit of context. I wasn’t just being disrespectful in terms of Derek.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel