Derek McInnes has been speaking to the media before Kilmarnock’s Premiership game with Motherwell this weekend.
Here are the key points from the Rugby Park boss:
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McInnes is confident he’ll get the desired response from his team after the “sore” 5-1 drubbing by St Mirren and insists: “We’re not feeling sorry for ourselves, we’re not rolling over, sucking our thumbs and thinking everything’s against us.”
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He adds: “I trust the players. I think no matter what people say, these boys care.”
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The Killie boss is seeking to get “more confidence into the players” and believes beating Motherwell would help do that.
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McInnes says this is the first year in his time at Killie that expectations maybe haven’t been ”reached”. He adds: “I think you’re judged against your record last season, effectively. That’s football. And if you’re judged against that, then we have come up short this season, but there’s still too much to play for.”
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Management isn’t all “sunshine and rainbows” and you have to get through the “tough times”, but McInnes believes the time to “really judge and reflect” is at the end of the season.
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He has urged supporters to get behind the team on Saturday “because it’s us against everybody else”.
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McInnes has stressed the need for Killie to stay calm and, while he wanted them to be challenging for Europe again, the now aims is to “do our jobs well enough to be the best of the bottom six”.
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Kyle Vassell, who has been out since January, is back in training but won’t be ready for Saturday and will return post-split. Stuart Findlay’s return from injury is a boost.
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On league reconstruction, McInnes says he likes the split – “it has brought something” and thought the agenda was to expand the league which would take some of the pressure off clubs and give encouragement to others.
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