One week you’re up, the next you’re down. The Ladbrokes Premiership – from positions sixth to 12th at least – is like some footballing version of snakes and ladders. A win here and you make the kind of upwardly mobile thrust that would get you honorary membership of the Kennedy Space Centre. A defeat there and you’re swiftly plumbing the murky depths of a torpedoed battleship.
Kilmarnock started the weekend in 11th place. They head into an encounter with a deflated Aberdeen tomorrow night in sixth following this commanding victory over an out of sorts Dundee.
As we hurtle towards Christmas, and the season of goodwill becomes a fevered, hysterical stooshie of shopping, office parties and queues at the butchers, the football fixture list adds to this sense of pandemonium.
Six games will be shoehorned in between now and the January break and Steven Smith, the Kilmarnock defender, is well aware how crucial a spell this Yule log-jam can be.
“This was a massive three points because we needed a good start to this month,” said the 31-year-old who helped set up Killie’s second goal for Souleymane Coulibaly. “This month is something we spoke about. The schedule is up on the wall and a few things have been written on it specifically about this month, just how crucial it’s going to be.
“We haven’t set ourselves a points target, as such. But the games are all winnable, if we prepare right and recover right.
“The club and the coaching staff are doing everything in their power to help us recover. We’ve got to repay them with performances on the park. We did that against Dundee.”
Having lost the Betfred Cup final with a limp display against Celtic and then endured another fruitless visit to Glasgow on Saturday with a 2-1 defeat at Rangers, Aberdeen could be ripe for the taking. Smith is urging caution, though.
“Aberdeen will be hurting,” added Smith, who had a brief loan spell in the Granite City back in 2011. “They’ve lost two big games and a row and will be looking for a reaction. ‘I know, you can say we could use Aberdeen’s situation against them and put the pressure on. But, remember, we spoke about similar things before we went to Ibrox last time and we ended up on the wrong side of a 3-0 defeat. So we know what to expect off a big team coming off the back of two really disappointing losses.
“Yes, the Aberdeen crowd can be demanding. I know that. It can be difficult for the home team. We said the same thing about going to play Rangers. Aberdeen came here and turned us over at the start of the season, so we know they’re a good side. It’s not about owing them one. They beat us well on the day, it was maybe one of their best performances of the season but we were really poor. If we don’t change that, it will be the same again on Tuesday night.”
If Kilmarnock can muster the same kind of vigorous display they produced against Dundee, then Aberdeen could be in for a tough night. Ryan McKenzie got them going with a goal on 21 minutes before a second from Coulibaly with 20 minutes left gave the hosts a comfortable cushion.
With a raft of new faces arriving in the summer that made you think ITV stalwart Derek Hobson had been put in charge of the Rugby Park recruitment policy, Kilmarnock’s calamitous Betfred Cup campaign in those fledgling weeks of the season is slowly being forgotten about.
“I think we’ve shown a bit of fight,” said Smith. “We’ve spoken amongst ourselves about how we played in the League Cup at the start of the season. That wasn’t nearly good enough. And it was maybe a reality check for everyone. The young boys are growing up quite quickly. They’re learning that you can’t just turn it on for one game, you have to be consistent. We head into a tough game on Tuesday night and there will be no hiding. We have to go there and perform and keep working. I’m sure they’ll do that.”
The protests and pelters directed towards the Kilmarnock company secretary, Michael Johnston, certainly didn’t distract the players on the park. Indeed the orchestrated chants of ‘we want Johnston out’ in the 18th and 69th minutes – 1869 being the year the club was formed – actually brought rewards. Killie’s goals both arrived not long after these times. “There was a bit of an atmosphere today, which was better,” said Smith. “That always helps. I don’t want to say we helped the protest, but we helped to create some atmosphere with the way we played.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here