The Review: As manager David Martindale moves upstairs, it’s all change at Livingston… or is it?

If any other manager had presided over the troubles Livingston have had this season, he would probably have been hounded from the premises.

That the Premiership’s longest-serving boss, David Martindale, has been moved upstairs says a lot about his unique relationship with the club.

After a home defeat by Motherwell, which left them six points adrift of second-bottom Kilmarnock, Livi finally decided action was needed.

In a club statement, they announced that first-team coach Marvin Bartley would take over as manager and Martindale would fill the new role of sporting director.

While many long-suffering fans welcomed the news, at least as many will be uncomfortable with a set-up in which nothing much appears to have changed.

After all, Bartley has been in the dugout since last summer – and Martindale has been struggling in recent years to emulate the success he achieved after taking over in 2020.

Marvin Bartley has been appointed manager of Livingston as they battle to avoid relegation

Tawanda Maswanhise celebrates scoring the opener in Motherwell’s 2-0 win over Livingston

Relegation for the second time in three seasons looks almost inevitable. Livi’s total of 11 points from 24 games is one of the worst at this stage of a Premiership campaign since the turn of the century.

They haven’t won a match in any competition for nearly six months, a wretched run that can be traced directly to their poor recruitment last summer, when Martindale brought in 14 players.

Most of them have come up short. Zak Rudden and Graham Carey are now at Dunfermline, numerous others have been farmed out on loan, and too many who remain should probably be operating in the Championship.

Hampered also by a number of long-term injuries, most notably to Adam Montgomery, Martindale has sought to rectify matters in the January transfer window.

But the damage done last summer has been costly, and the great irony is that the manager responsible for it is now the club’s sporting director, whose job will be to buy and sell players.

In many ways, you can see the challenge for Livingston, whose American owner Calvin Ford greatly admires Martindale’s passion and loyalty.

This, remember, is a manager who served a prison sentence before the club allowed him to build them up behind the scenes, then take over as manager.

So grateful was Martindale for the opportunity that he poured his heart and soul into it, doing everything from coaching and recruitment to admin and odd jobs around the ground.

His influence pervaded the club at every level. Which is fine when things are going well. When they are not, it can be a dangerous business model.

For all his early successes, including a top-six finish in his first season, Martindale’s Livi are now toiling and it left the club in a difficult position.

Their answer has been to oversee change in such a way that Martindale stays on board and the new manager is someone who was already in the building.

Maybe they are to be commended for standing by someone they believe in, especially during an era famously short of patience.

Or maybe they are a club who, despite their recent improvements under new ownership, remain unhealthily dependent on one man.

Let’s hope, for their long-term future, that Livi have got it right.