GOUGH STILL NOT SETTLED ON HIS BEST SIDE

Livingston manager Richard Gough admits he is no nearer to finding a settled side after a 2-1 home defeat by Hearts in the Bank of Scotland Premier League left the struggling West Lothian men still rooted to the bottom of the table.

Gough made six changes to the team thrashed 4-1 by Inverness at Almondvale on Saturday and for a while the drastic surgery looked to have worked.

Striker Derek Lilley had fired the home side into a 74th-minute lead and three points would have lifted the Lions, without a league win in their previous five games, above second-bottom Dundee United.

However, a tremendous 84th-minute free-kick by Hearts midfielder Paul Hartley was followed just two minutes later by striker Lee Miller's close-range header to leave the Almondvale side in bottom spot.

Gough admits that despite his experimentation, he is not much clearer as to who will form the basis of his side for the rest of the season.

He said: "I want the players to go in there and prove they are worth a position in the team and in the seven games or so that I have had there are not many, maybe two or three, who I would say will be playing every week.

"But their attitude was 100% better than it was on Saturday and we managed to get ourselves in front, fortunately, because Hearts were on top.

"I did not think we deserved to lose the game, I think a share of the points would have been fairer."

Hearts manager John Robertson, who watched his side go within one point of fourth-placed Aberdeen, insists his side deserved the victory despite the lateness of the goals.

He said: "To be fair, we knew it was going to be a tough game after Livingston took a heavy defeat on Saturday.

"We knew that the team that Richard sent out would battle and scrap for everything and that is exactly what they did.

"We had lots of domination, similar to the Dundee game at the weekend, but we had more chances this time, we had three or four chances in the first half and just did not take them.

"We said to the players at half-time to go out and keep creating and one will come but we missed another two or three and Livingston, with their first real clear opportunity, scored and then we were up against it.

"We decided to chuck the two young boys Saulius Mikoliunas and Halmar Ghorridson on and see if we got a spark and they certainly gave us that.

"We started to probe and probe and it was a magnificent equaliser from Paul and then the winner from Lee.

"It is very hard on Livingston but although we left it late again, we merited the win."

Taken from sportinglife.com