Kyle Vassell insists that he and his Kilmarnock teammates have no time to feel sorry for themselves.

The striker, 31, started against Aberdeen on Saturday lunchtime, as Derek McInnes’ side went down 3-1 to the hosts in Neil Warnock’s final game of his 32-day stint at Pittodrie.

Over 1,500 Killie fans made the long trip to the north east for the early kick-off. And the captain is sorry the team couldn’t deliver another semi-final slot for them.

“It’s a bitter one because I wanted to lead the boys out at Hampden,” he said. “The fans were amazing, they came up here and sold out their end so we apologise to them because it’s a sore one.

“I don’t think it was that we didn’t turn up, but games can be like that - and the goals we conceded could have been avoided.

“We lost goals at bad times and the manner of them, with deflections and stuff, was hard to take.

“Goals win games and although we started both halves the stronger team, the luck was on their side today. So we are very frustrated with how the game went and the final result.

“We need to focus on getting top six first and foremost but we can’t look too far ahead.

“Our main thing is getting top six and then after that you can think about Europe.

“Will this result fire us up? I don’t think so, it doesn’t change anything because we have such a focused group.

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“The gaffer is very good at making us focus on one game at a time so we’d be fired up for the rest of the season no matter what.

“I haven’t seen their third goal back, there were so many people on the bench I didn’t get a good view of it.

“He’s big enough and strong enough to get over it. It is what it is. I don’t think there was much fault in the goals, we’ve just been unlucky.”