Oh, brother! Liam pays penalty as Sean gets Livi win
Anderson (53), Kelly (62 pen)
It was Kelly v Kelly at the Toni Macaroni but elder brother Sean took the bragging rights as Livingston recorded their first home win of the season.
Second-half goals from Bruce Anderson and a penalty from Kelly senior– who beat brother Liam in the Motherwell goal – gave Livingston only their second league win of the season.
David Martindale’s side have only lost to Celtic and Rangers this term and are now level on points with Motherwell.
The dismissal of teenager Lennon Miller on the cusp of the break was the turning point in a game that had offered precious little to get excited about.
“We’re not getting carried away, but it’s three points and a clean sheet,” said the Livingston manager.
“I felt we just shaded it 11 v 11. Motherwell have had a fairly good start to the campaign and they’ve got a good shape about them and a good structure. I don’t think they caused us many problems in the first half and we worked on Dan MacKay, in particular, attacking those central zones at pace.
“We got our just rewards from it and Dan got his just rewards from it.
“I’ll be honest, I thought it was going to be a difficult second half, in terms of trying to break Motherwell down.”
MacKay opened up Motherwell in the first real moment of note in the game. Stephen Kelly, however, couldn’t get a clean shot away.
At the other end Theo Bair tried to run at the Livingston defence but could not find a way through.
Dan Casey had an audacious free-kick almost from the halfway line tipped over the bar by Livingston keeper Shamal George but the opening half offered very little in the way of genuine goalmouth action.
It was only when Lennon was shown a straight red card, with the decision vindicated by a VAR check, that the game opened up.
Anderson had burst through the Motherwell midfield before slipping the ball through to MacKay with Miller judged to have just caught him and denied a goal-scoring opportunity.
“I’m assuming Lennon has caught him because if he never then VAR would have picked it up,” said Martindale.
“I don’t think it’s harsh because it would have led to Dan being clean through and getting a shot off.
“In Lennon’s defence, I don’t think there’s many players in the Premiership catching Dan.” Livingston turned the screw. MacKay was the catalyst for the opener as he made his way into the box before delivering a low and inviting ball across the face of goal for Anderson to convert before Kelly then doubled Livingston’s lead from the spot.
James Penrice was upended by Bevis Mugabe and Kelly sent his brother the wrong way.
“I texted him during the week and said, ‘look, if we get a penalty, are you alright hitting it?’ and he said ‘of course’,” explained Martindale.
“I asked him because he is the penalty taker but he stays with Liam so they know each other inside out so I didn’t want him walking up there and he wasn’t confident to take the penalty.
“To be fair, Liam has come on top against us a few times so it was nice to see him not come out on top from this one.”
Jason Holt thought he’d won a second penalty after he clashed with Georgie Gent with VAR retracting an original call to award the spot-kick while Steven Bradley side-footed an effort wide.