Livi Utd boss: I praised side despite heavy defeat

Apr 21 2011 By Eric MacKinnon

Andy Johnstone

LIVINGSTON UNITED boss Andy Johnstone has revealed he praised his side after they were turned over 4-1 to end the season’s longest unbeaten run in the Juniors.
The South Division shock troops have marched to the top of the table fuelled by a remarkable run of form which gave them 11 wins out of their last 12 league matches.
But last weekend they tumbled to a first defeat since October when fellow title hopefuls Haddington Athletic fired four past them with Johnstone admitting his relief the scoring stopped at four.
Johnstone has compared his side’s campaign to that of a fairytale, which is why he wasn’t too hard on his players.
He said: “The guys have done brilliantly and I actually praised them after the game.
“It may sound stupid to do that after such a heavy defeat but what they have done this season is Roy of the Rovers stuff.
“On the day we were well beaten. It was disappointing as it was our first league defeat since October 17 last year which I think was the longest unbeaten run in junior football in Scotland [this season].
“We won 11 and only drew one of our last 12 league matches.”
Lee Docherty had steered Livingston into a half-time lead but Johnstone concedes the goal came against the run of play and when they went down to 10 men following a red card for John Murphy it handed the initiative to a Haddington side who were hard to live with after the break.
Johnstone continued: “I’ve no excuses on the day. We actually went 1-0 up against the run of play but we conceded a goal just two minutes after the break and then went down to 10 and from then on it was all one-way traffic.
“The only positive thing was it was only four in the end. I have to be honest about that – and they were by far the better team.
“I was impressed with Haddington. They were in the last-chance-saloon as they were nine points behind and had we won it would have been all over for them.
“But on the day they played like a team who knew they were on their last chance and they simply wanted it more than us.
“We now have to dig in and now this will test the character of the team and we’ll see where we go from here.
“Sauchie dropped a couple of points too and all the other sides round about us – like Stoneyburn, Blackburn, Fauldhouse and Haddington – all have to play one another so there will be a few turns before the end of the season.
“We have Stoneyburn this weekend which won’t be easy as they have had a great season and will maybe also fancy their chances of winning the league too.”