Marvin Bartley didn’t quite admit that his Livingston team are gone, consigned to their second relegation in three years, but he might as well have.
After a 2-0 defeat by Kilmarnock at Rugby Park yesterday, his language was that of a man who knew it was all over bar the shouting.
‘Right now, when you look at it, it’s bleak,’ said Bartley whose players came up short in a game that was their only realistic chance of keeping alive any hope of a miracle.
A goal in each half by Joe Hugill and Findlay Curtis gave second-bottom Killie a comfortable victory that moved them 12 points clear, on the same total as 10th-placed St Mirren and just three behind Aberdeen.
Even if any of those teams were to collapse between now and the end of the season, the idea that Livingston could win most of their seven remaining matches stretches credulity.
They have triumphed just once in the league all season – and that was back in August, when they beat newly-promoted Falkirk.
Livingston boss Marvin Bartley has been fighting a losing battle since taking over last month
Findlay Curtis scores Kilmarnock’s second goal in a 2-0 win against Livingston at Rugby Park
David Martindale’s recruitment last summer has led Livingston to the brink of relegation
Since then, it has been a campaign of unremitting failure for Livi, one in which they have been competitive within games, but woefully short of the quality needed to win them.
That’s why they have just 15 points and are in danger of finishing with fewer than the meagre 25 they accumulated when they went down in 2024.
It’s why they can be mentioned in the same breath as Gretna, whose record low for the SPL era (13 in 2008) included a 10-point deduction for going into administration.
Results have been so poor in their last two Premiership seasons that it raises questions about the structure of the club and its operations off the pitch.
Bartley has tried his best since taking over from David Martindale in early February – his seven games have included a run of four straight draws – but he has been fighting a losing battle.
The squad is not good enough, and the responsibility for that lies with Martindale, whose recruitment last summer was so ill-judged that many of his signings had to be shipped out.
Martindale sought to rectify matters in the January window, but there was no improvement in results and Livingston’s solution was to make him sporting director and promote his assistant.
It suggested an unhealthy dependence on Martindale who had been rightly lauded for almost single-handedly building Livingston into a club that punched above its weight in the Premiership.
To his great credit, he had done everything at Almondvale, from signing and coaching players to boardroom politics and helping out with oddjobs around the ground.
That, though, meant that all Livi’s eggs were in one man’s basket: when they were good, they were very good. But when they were bad…
Last summer, new owner Calvin Ford sought to ease the burden on Martindale by providing him with a stronger support network, but it hasn’t worked out.
They don’t appear to have what every modern, progressive club should have, namely a sustainable infrastructure, the success of which doesn’t depend entirely on the manager.
Putting in place the foundations of a better, more adaptable, more resilient club, off the pitch as well as on it, should be the priority for Livi as they return once again to the Championship.
