Livingston 0 Ayr United 1: Martindale frustrated as ref blunders cost side

By Ian Steven

Livingston manager David Martindale was left searching for some Christmas spirit after a couple of bewildering decisions by referee Duncan Williams handed a valuable three points to title rivals Ayr United.

The home side were clean through on goal early on with the whistler blowing erroneously for offside, which enraged the home support.

The Lions then found the back of the net after 13 minutes through Tete Yengi, with Williams outlawing the goal for a handball offence, leaving Martindale frustrated as his side fell five points behind Championship leaders Falkirk.

He said: “There's a couple of big decisions the referee got wrong in the game, in terms of offsides. We're a 2 v 1 in the first half. Blows the whistle for offside. Linesman doesn't flag, it's clearly onside with a 2v1 box.

“And he blows the whistle for offside. He apologised, to be fair to him. Blows the whistle for offside, but then gives us a free kick because he got it wrong in a 2v1 situation in the first half.

“He apologised, which I'll take, but it's all baffling how if the linesman’s not flagged, he arrives at the decision that he's offside.

“So then we've got the ball in the net, and then the whistle goes after the ball's in the net.

“So I think what he's saying is Tete Yengi took his touch, it came up at his hand, and he scored. But the ball was in the net before the whistle went. There was a bit of a delay, maybe three, four seconds of a delay. We obviously all felt that was a goal. So I've not looked at that back to see if it was a handball.

“But that's not why we lost the game. We don't defend a throw in our final third, I think we created some really good chances in the game. We had enough possession in the game, we had enough