Two first half goals were enough to give Motherwell a friendly win over Livingston as a host of new faces made their debut at Fir Park. Final score, 2-1.
The sun shone of the perfect pitch as Stephen O’Donnell led the team out in the new home strips. There were ten familiar faces in the starting and only Liam Gordon was there to represent the new close season signings.
Motherwell took the game to the visitors as they defended the South Stand goal. Shane Blaney opened the scoring after half an hour. Andy Halliday's dead ball delivery to the far post area was slammed home by the unmarked defender.
A second goal followed ten minutes later when Moses Ebiye fired into the roof of the net from close range after the visitors failed to deal with a free kick at the edge of the area. The referee had initially awarded a spot kick but his assistant disagreed.
Krisztian Hegyi swapped places with Oxoborough at the interval. His first call to action came when he had to deal with a dodgy header from Gordon and a minute later he had to pick the ball from the net when Tete Yengi was presented with an easy finish following unimpressive ‘Well defending.
For the rest of the half the visitors made the running. There were no attempts on Shamal George's goal. Stuart Kettlewell made a further eight substitutions as the game wore on as Seddon, Balmer, Zdavkivski, Sparrow, Stuparevic, Luca Ross, Ferrie and McDermott were given a run out.
The real business starts next week when Edinburgh City arrive to get the Premier Sports Cup group stage underway.
Motherwell 2 Livingston 1
Pre-season friendly
Attendance 1,547
Starting 11: Oxoborough, O'Donnell, Gordon, Casey, Blaney, Wilson, Halliday, Miller, Paton, Wells, Ebiye
Saturday 6 July 2024