Livingston boss David Martindale believes the “right thing” was done in bringing forward the cinch Premiership break to immediately after the Boxing Day fixtures.

Martindale last week called for Scottish football to speed up the winter shutdown due to the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19.

Cinch Premiership clubs voted 10-2 to postpone two rounds of fixtures following restrictions on crowd numbers, which were announced by the Scottish Government on Tuesday, and the following day the decision was ratified at a meeting of the Scottish Professional Football League board.

Fixtures from December 29 and January 2-3 have been put back to January 17-18 and February 1-2 respectively.

Ahead of the trip to Motherwell on Boxing Day, where there will be just 500 fans in attendance, Martindale said: “Democracy came through in the end.

“Fair play to the SPFL as well for organising it as quick as they did and you probably have to say Sky played a big part in that as well.

“I thought it might have come down to commercial obligations and Sky have obviously allowed it to happen.

“I do believe we have got to the right decision.

“It is two sets of fixtures and I think throughout the course of the season we will be able to fit them in somewhere.

“Hopefully when we come back the fans will be allowed back into the stadium and that will be a win-win for everybody.”

Martindale revealed his admiration for fourth-placed Motherwell’s clinical finishing ahead of their meeting

He said: I’m looking forward to it. Graham Alexander has done a fantastic job at Motherwell, they have found ways to win games of football.

“I have watched a lot of their games this season and they have a fantastic habit of turning chances into goals.

“They maybe not get a lot of chances in some games but they manage to turn them into goals – two shots on target, two goals, that type of thing.

“So that group of players at Motherwell have learned as a collective to win games of football and that must be very pleasing for Graham. It is going to be a difficult task for us.”