St Johnstone denied at the death as Jack Fitzwater secures point for Livingston

St Johnstone face a relegation play-off tie after Jack Fitzwater’s last-minute equaliser secured Livingston a 1-1 draw at the Tony Macaroni Arena.

Fitzwater cancelled out Glenn Middleton’s opener to leave Saints, who cannot catch 10th-placed Aberdeen, six points above bottom-placed Dundee with two games remaining.

Middleton bundled home fellow substitute James Brown’s cross at the back post for his first league goal of the season, before Fitzwater fired the hosts level in the dying seconds from a rebound after Zander Clark had brilliantly kept out an initial effort from Scott Pittman.

Livingston boss David Martindale had unsurprisingly named an unchanged side on the back of two impressive victories against Aberdeen and Hibernian, while his opposite number Callum Davidson made three alterations after last weekend’s poor 1-0 defeat at home to St Mirren – with Dan Cleary, Stevie May and Cammy MacPherson all coming in.

It was the away side who almost went in front within the first 30 seconds, as Melker Hallberg sent in a dangerous low cross but Callum Hendry could only clip over from six yards.

Livingston were next to go close in an entertaining opening five-minute period, with Joel Nouble skewing a shot wide before May shot straight at Ivan Konovalov following a swift counter-attack for the visitors.

After this hugely open early start to proceedings, the match settled down with Saints enjoying more of the ball without creating much in the way of chances until Konovalov was called into action again just after the half-hour mark, clawing away a dangerous Cleary flick-on from a Shaun Rooney long throw.

The tireless May then went down in the box as he chased a stray ball alongside Ayo Obileye but referee Willie Collum was