Livingston boss David Martindale has confirmed that next season’s budget won’t be impacted by their failure to reach the top six.
The Lions were edged out of a top half finish when they conceded an injury-time equaliser to Motherwell on Saturday after being two goals in front.
Ricki Lamie’s strike saw Livi fall to eighth place and they get their post-split fixtures underway on April 23 with a trip to Aberdeen.
That’s then followed by home clashes with Hibs and St Johnstone on April 30 and May 7 before a Wednesday night trip to Paisley to face St Mirren (May 11).
The season ends four days later at home to Dundee.
Speaking to the Courier, Martindale commented: “The playing budget doesn’t change regardless of whether we’re in the top six or bottom six or wherever we finish.
“Ironically, the two seasons we were in the top six we didn’t really see the benefits of it and then this year we miss out with a last minute goal.
“The first year, the season got called early and we lost out on £250,000 of the prize money then last season there were no crowds so you don’t get the gates of having those bigger clubs after the split.
“We’ve got a budget that we work within and that doesn’t change so I wouldn’t have seen any more money if we had grabbed that top six place.”
The gaffer admitted that Saturday’s crushing late goal left him ‘disappointed’ but said there were multiple points throughout the campaign that could have seen them wrap up a top half finish prior to the weekend.
He said: “I was disappointed after Saturday but the reality is there were 33 games played and there’s countless of moments you can point to that if they had gone the other way then we’d have been in the top six.
“I actually think we’ve played a lot of good football at times this season. There was a reason it took a last minute goal to knock us out of the top six - because we had done enough to get ourselves into that position in the first place and we’d all have taken being in that position before the first game.
“But nobody can feel sorry for themselves or let this impact the rest of the season. The guys have the week off from the club to de-stress and been given fitness schedules to work on but a lot of them have still come in.
“We’ll put it all behind us and get prepared for the next part of the season when we come back in next week.
“Anything can happen in these last five games and we need to be at it right from the start if we want to secure our place in the league.”
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