Livingston boss David Martindale has expressed his delight at Cristian Montano’s form after the Colombian scored his side’s game-winning goal for the second game in a row.
The 30-year-old, who scored the only goal against Hearts in early September, headed in Sean Kelly’s corner to secure a 1-0 win over Kilmarnock on Saturday.
A difficult first season at West Lothian saw Montano make just 19 appearances for the Lions, but Martindale was pleased with the defender’s attitude after a summer of talks over his future.
After watching Montano score his third goal of the season, Livi’s boss said: “He’s been brilliant all season.
“I had a conversation with Cristian at the end of the year, saying, ‘Listen, if you want to come back down the road, I’m not going to stand in your way, but if you want to come here, I need of X, Y and Z’.
“He gave us that and a little more. We can say that he was our best player this season. I am delighted with him.
Meanwhile, Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes was left frustrated by another narrow loss on the road.
The defeat at the Tony Macaroni Arena is the third time in four away Premiership meetings in which the newly promoted side have lost a single goal.
With a trip to McInnes’ former stomping grounds in Aberdeen on the horizon, Killie’s boss says his team must continue to learn from their disappointments.
The early league appearances of Jordan Jones and Zach Hemming provided the manager of Rugby Park with a source of solace.
He added: “The substitutes helped us for a while trying to equalize but we don’t want to get used to losing games.
“We want to be a winning team and if we can’t be a winning team, we have to get something for our work rate.
“We don’t feel good about ourselves after a loss and it’s not ideal that we now have to wait for another game due to the international break.
“We have to make sure next time we learn as we go. I feel that we are not far and even if we lose matches, we are not attacked and nobody assassinates us.
