Elijah Just provided a dramatic moment of inspiration as his injury-time winner earned Motherwell a thrilling last-gasp Scottish Premiership victory over Livingston.

Despite being denied by the video assistant referee (VAR) just moments earlier for a narrow offside call, New Zealand midfielder Just found the back of the net deep into stoppage time to give the visitors only their second league win of the season.

It was the hosts who struck first from the spot after Jeremy Bokila was caught by Liam Gordon inside the Motherwell box. Bokila stepped up to take and rifled the ball into the roof of the net.

David Martindale’s side were probably unlucky not to be further ahead at the break with Robbie Muirhead and Mo Sylla both being denied in front of goal before Bokila’s attempt deep into first-half stoppage time was blocked.

Despite trailing, Jens Berthel Askou made no changes at the break but his side were rewarded with a penalty less than 10 minutes into the second half.

After being instructed to go to the monitor by the VAR, referee Nick Walsh awarded the spot-kick for a handball by Macaulay Tait.

There was a further delay to proceedings while Robbie Muirhead received treatment before the spot kick could be taken, but it did not faze Apostolos Stamatelopoulos who slotted the ball beyond Jerome Prior and into the bottom left corner.

Stamatelopoulos did have the ball in the back of the net for what would have been the winner, but Just was adjudged to have been offside before he rolled the pass to the Australian striker.

Tete Yengi had a chance to snatch it for Livi at the other end but Calum Ward did well to keep the ball out of the Motherwell goal, paving the way for late drama at the other end.

Livingston manager David Martindale tells BBC Sportsound: “It’s really raw. A late goal, dropped points. That’s three times we’ve done that at home. I’m disappointed in the manner of the goals we’ve lost.

“The first is a poor individual decision. The second one is a ball we don’t need to play, and we’ve just got lucky from the offside goal moments before. I don’t understand it. There’s a level of naivety, and it’s up to me to try and address that.

“Players that have made mistakes and bad errors are having to learn on the job. There’s a lot in the performance that I’m quite happy with. We got to grips with the game and we deserved the lead at half-time.

“Second half, we started okay. We have to look after the ball a bit better in the final third. The two goals we lose are really disappointing.”

Match report: Charlotte Cohen

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