Livingston boss David Martindale has hit out at the SPFL after the Lions will be forced to play five games in just 14 days.
The league re-arranged their home clash with Hibs, which had been postponed last week due to a covid outbreak at the Edinburgh club, for December 8.
That means Livi will have a horror run of five games, all against sides currently sitting in the top seven, in the space of a fortnight.
After hosting Rangers on Sunday, November 28, it’s a Wednesday night trip to Aberdeen followed by consecutive home clashes with the Edinburgh duo as Hearts visit on December 5 before Hibs make the trip to the Tony Macaroni Arena three days later.
The busy schedule ends with a journey to Tannadice to take on Dundee United on December 11.
Speaking to the West Lothian Courier, Martindale said: “For me there’s a sporting integrity issue here as well as a player wellbeing and product issue.
“You’re asking guys to play five times in 14 days. I can guarantee we’re going to be picking up muscle injuries and playing so many games in such a short space of time is going to have a real impact on the product.
“It’s a brutal run during the busiest month of the year. We’d already had eight games scheduled in a little over a month but now we’ve got another one as well. Why did it need to be scheduled during that time?”
He added: “It used to be that the two clubs would have a discussion and see if they could come up with a date between them then the league would step in if needed but that’s not how it works now, you get given a date.
“It’s going to be a really tough challenge for the players to get through those five games but we’re just going to have to get on with it.”
The Lions gaffer admitted he had sympathy for Hibs but says the SPFL picked a date that ‘wasn’t needed’.
He continued: “I feel sorry for Hibs because I’m sure they’d have wanted to play the games on the original date.
“But through no fault of our own we’ve been put in a really difficult position by the league picking a date for the re-arranged game that wasn’t needed.
“We even asked about pushing the Dundee United game back a day but were told no. We would need to ask Dundee United ourselves and they’re obviously going to say no - that’s what I would do.”
He added: “I get the league’s view that they want to avoid a big backlog for later in the season but I just think everyone would have been better served with the game being pushed back until next year.”
Don't miss the latest news from the West Lothian Courier. Sign up to our free newsletter here https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/newsletter-preference-centre/
