Livingston boss jokes Nigerian youngster was handed debut to help pay fines

dailyrecord.co.uk:

David Martindale joked that Samson Lawal was handed a debut in their Viaplay Cup win over Ayr United purely to help the youngster pay for his fines.The 19-year-old, who represented Nigeria at this summer’s Under-20 World Cup, made his Lions debut in the final moments of their 2-0 win over the Honest Men and Martindale believes that he has a bright future at the club.He said: “I’ve fined him that much that I needed to help him out and get him his win bonus.“He’s just still getting used to things.

On Sunday he was down at the ground at 11am in jeans and a t-shirt. I said to him ‘one, you’re two hours early, and two where’s your tracksuit?

and he said 'I'm sorry coach, I didn't know.'“He’d got fined £100 for putting his GPS tracker in the wash too and he's been fined for his finishing drills in training as well so I thought that I had to help him out a bit and get him on the park and get him a used sub win bonus.”While he's taking a bit of time to get used to things off the park, Martindale admitted the youngster has a bright future ahead of him, saying: "He’s been working really hard and I’ve been really impressed.

He’ll get a lot of game time with the reserves initially, but I don’t think he’s far off being game ready for the first team."The reserves start back up next week and he'll get 90 minutes.