How Shaun Maloney inspired SPFL boss who vows to heed Celtic hero's advice

Livingston boss Glenn Whelan has vowed to heed advice from Celtic coach Shaun Maloney in his first management job.

The Irishman took over at Almondvale earlier this summer and turned his attention towards gaining promotion at the first time of asking after they succumbed to the Premiership drop last season.

Whelan worked alongside Maloney during his time as manager at Wigan Athletic and the former believes he learned plenty even in just the two years they were together.

And he hopes to take Livi to the top flight of Scottish football again using some of the lessons his old pal passed on, even if he does plan to be his own man with his own ideas for the most part.

“Shaun was great for me, bring­ing me in. Obvi­ously, with him­self work­ing with Roberto Mar­tinez, com­ing out of Bel­gium, he had loads of great ideas," Whelan said.

Glenn Whelan (Image: Shutterstock)

“It was great just to have the con­ver­sa­tions more so about how we see foot­ball. The Wigan exper­i­ence, like any­thing, you take the best out of it and hope­fully improve.

“The end­ing was not good, how it ended, but it’s foot­ball. It’s the industry that we’re in.

“For me, I played until I was late into my thirties, and now I’m on the coach­ing lad­der.

“I’m look­ing to try and get as high as I can in this format. Now I need to come in and try and prove myself, first and fore­most to the fans at Liv­ing­ston and get a tune out of the boys.”