Livingston boss Davie Martindale has revealed Danny Wilson is close to a return to action — and he hopes to extend the defender’s stay with the Lions.
Wilson joined the club in October as a free agent on a short-term deal until January and Martindale will be looking to keep hold of the 32-year-old ex-Rangers, Hearts and Liverpool man, who has been out with a calf injury and last played on November 2.
Martindale said: “Danny is probably going to be back training on Sunday for a session.
“He’ll be ready before Christmas, for sure. He might miss some game time because he’ll need to get his match fitness up, but he will be ready to play.
“How many minutes he will be able to play will be the issue.
“His deal is up in January, but there is an option for us to extend that and I imagine we will be exercising that option.
“I don’t see Danny not being here for the rest of the season.
“Holding on to Danny would give us some options defensively. We have been a wee bit short of late. The back four has been the same back four. They are robust and they have been available in nearly every single game.
“But we’ve had injuries to Shaun Donnellan, Cristian Montano, Ben Jackson and Danny, so there’s a group of four defenders there who have been injured.”
Meanwhile, Martindale insists a three-game spell in eight days won’t shape their season as they look to claw back some ground on Championship leaders Falkirk.
The Lions fell eight points adrift of the league leaders after a 0-0 draw with Morton at Cappielow last week, but they play their game in hand over the Bairns on Tuesday night away to Airdrieonians, which comes in between home clashes with Partick Thistle tonight and third-place Ayr United next Saturday.
It provides a chance to put some pressure on Falkirk going into the festive period, but Martindale – who was crowned manager of the month for November after an unbeaten spell – is putting no great importance on the spell they have coming up.
He said: “Every game is a big game in this league and we’ll be looking to pick up three points in all of them.
“Whether we are successful or not successful in this period, it is not going to change how we want the season to go.
“Saturday was frustrating but that is football. There are a lot of points going to be dropped between now and the end of the season by all teams.
“I am fairly comfortable with where we are at the moment, I’m not going to be too despondent about it.
“We should have taken the three points on Saturday and we didn’t, but we’ve lost one game from 15 and we’ve got real consistency behind us.
“We’ve still got Falkirk to play twice but I don’t want to turn it into us and Falkirk because I do believe there are other teams in the mix.
“I just want to concentrate on us and how we are approaching games.”
The Lions were held to a goalless draw in Maryhill when they last met Partick in October and they needed a last-minute winner to see off bottom side Airdrie 2-1 on home turf in September.
On those clashes, Martindale said: “They will be really difficult games. Partick look to have put their start to the season behind them. I think they are one of the form teams in the league at the moment so they will make it difficult for us.
“I have not had any easy games in this league. There’s this image of us being a big team and teams seem to lift their game against us, but I think that is just with us coming down from the Premiership.
“Did I think the Championship would be a bit easier than it has been? Probably. I have been surprised by the standard and it is a better level than I gave it credit for when we were in the Premiership.
“There’s a lot of good players, a lot of good managers at this level and there’s no easy games.”