David Martindale says appointing Marvin Bartley as his right-hand man was a ‘no- brainer’ and believes the Lions will struggle to keep hold of the last season's club captain.
The 35-year-old was named assistant manager following the departure of Liam Fox. He will continue to play but is expected to used sparingly this term. Livi also added former Hamilton Accies captain Dougie Imrie to the coaching staff.
That, Martindale says, has resulted in an altogether less stressful pre-season.
Speaking to the Courier, he said: “Asking Marv to be the assistant was an absolute no-brainer. He’s been brilliant and I genuinely believe he will go on to be a top, top manager.
“I’m delighted that he’s starting his journey with us but I don’t expect to keep him too long if I’m honest.
“With Dougie, I landed on my feet with him. I was chatting to folk at Hamilton and they said they were having to cut their budget and let him go.
“I spoke to a few people in the game, including Brian Rice, and they all said I should try and bring him in.
“I ended up speaking to Dougie and we’d agreed everything by the end of the day.”
He added: “Between him and Marv, it’s taken a huge amount of the burden away. We’re not all running about trying to do four different jobs like in previous seasons.
“I’ve felt that help massively because it’s allowed me to concentrate more on the team and the recruitment and it has allowed for more specialised sessions.
“Sometimes you’d be doing attacking drills and everybody would have to join in, but now with that extra coach we can individualise training or have the strikers doing attacking drills while the defenders are doing their drills rather than a general session for everyone and that has been a huge bonus.
“We also now have a camera in the stadium that records every training session and every game. It’s for the youth academy but we’ll be using it for the first team as well and it’s fantastic.
“There’s been plenty of changes like that that have really helped the club move on and evolve and hopefully we can reap the rewards throughout the season.”
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