THE Rugby Park media room was a little more crowded than usual just after 9am yesterday when Steve Clarke strode in and offered his usual warm handshakes to the assorted throng with a cheery “where were you all on Tuesday?” While the accusation was light-hearted, it has certainly been a while since the club were media darlings like this. Such luminaries as Gary Lineker and Marie Osmond have had their say since Kilmarnock appeared at the summit of the Ladbrokes Premiership in midweek, the subtext being the rather unlikely topic of whether they could ‘do a Leicester’ and capture their first Scottish top-flight title since 1964-65.

“Loads of people have got in touch, because obviously we have had a little bit of coverage in the sports networks,” says Clarke. “I have friends in the game who are quite pleased to see me doing well so it is nice to know that they are all watching.”

Even Billy Bowie, the man paying the cheques, chipped in this week, standing by earlier comments that replicating the achievement of Claudio Ranieri’s 5,000-1 outsiders in May 2016 shouldn’t be regarded as mission impossible.

Clarke is the perfect antidote to all this fluff, a man whose feet will forever be planted on football’s terra firma. He leaves it to others to do the dreaming. Instead of looking ahead to where his next win is coming from, he worries about where the next defeat might be lurking. It is the time-honoured defence mechanism of any football survivor.

“As a manager, you tend to concentrate more on the negatives than the positives,” said Clarke. “I sit here and I don’t look forward to the next win – I fear the next defeat. That’s just the mentality we have.

“Did I expect to be top of the table in December?” he added. “Probably not. Realistically, you expect the usual suspects to be up there but it seems to have been a more competitive league this season. There have been four different clubs at the top of the table so far but there’s always reminders. Look at Hearts – there was a period there where they couldn’t lose a game and now they can’t win one. Hibs started the season bright and fresh but Neil’s team has now gone six games without winning.

“Sometimes Billy [Bowie] gets a little bit carried away! But people like Billy are allowed to talk about that [doing a Leicester]. Our job is to focus on professionalism. I mentioned Hearts and Hibs because we know that the level of club that we are. We know we are capable of going on a run where we don’t pick up as many points as we maybe want to get.

“And we have to remain stable and focused. And that means that when the good times are here – and people will tell you this is quite a good time – you have to stay calm and focused and not look beyond this moment. Because maybe this moment won’t last forever.”

Kilmarnock supporters would love them to, because these are heady times in this corner of Ayrshire. Only 4143 fans might have come out on a dark December night for the 2-0 win against Livingston in midweek but when you added up the three points Kilmarnock took there it meant they had taken 75 points from the last 38 matches they had played in the league. Insert any caveat you like here, but Celtic’s haul over the same period is just 72 points.

“You can look at all the stats – and there are loads of statisticians about nowadays, everything has to be a stat – and the consistency is there,” said Clarke. “Even I can’t talk that down. But what I can do is remind everybody that we are a club which is capable of going on a poorer run. It is not something we are afraid of. But if we work as hard as we can to keep this good run going we should have a half decent season.”

Whether or not this ‘half decent’ season ends up with some historic Leicester-style silverware or not, he will always at least be able to measure it in the pride he sees in the supporters’ eyes. “My wife is from Kilmarnock,” says Clarke. “Her mum, brother and sister still live in the town. We know the area. We know it’s been a difficult time. When the football club was struggling, it wasn’t a nice place. It was quite negative. So the last few months have been nice.

“It’s not an area that has got fantastic employment,” he added. “Back-to-back games are difficult [for fans to afford]. Some people probably have to choose between them. But I know from my short experience back in Ayrshire that if the team keeps winning games then the crowd will come.”

Assistant to Jose Mourinho when Chelsea won the title, Clarke knows what it takes to win a title. Perhaps some might be surprised that he didn’t spend yesterday working with his first team. While they went off for a swim and jacuzzi to recover from their exertions against Livingston, he was at Rugby Park with the players on the fringes. These are the ones who he might need to do a job against Celtic, particularly with the likes of Kirk Broadfoot and Greg Taylor struggling.

“It’s about keeping everyone happy,” said Clarke. “That’s even more difficult to do at this level because the players don’t have the comfort of the big, cushy contract that pays good wages and lets them have that footballer’s lifestyle.”

As much as he eulogises the mentality of his squad, one comment of Bowie’s which did stick in the mind was the suggestion that the chairman would help him as much as possible in January. Having already worked wonders with the likes of Aaron Tshibola and Greg Stewart, Kilmarnock could already be in the territory where one choice signing really could elevate their challenge. Or one key departure de-rail it. Unlike challengers Celtic, Rangers, Hearts and Hibs, there is no budget to take his players away for a January training camp either. Instead, Clarke will allow them a week off.

“I don’t pay too much attention to the papers, but one of the quotes I took from Billy was that he would try and help me in January if he can,” said Clarke. “I’ve logged that one in the back of my mind! Other than that, I hope the O2 network fails again – for the whole month. I’m going on holiday on January 1 and coming back on the 31st!”

It hardly needs repeating that Clarke has an excellent record against his one-time Chelsea colleague Brendan Rodgers, having won two and drawn two of their four meetings in Scottish football to date. Is that record eating away at Rodgers? “I don’t know, you would have to ask him that,” said Clarke. “I wouldn’t think so. I think Brendan will be a little bit like me and look at the bigger picture. It’s points over course of the season, not who you win against. And they keep winning all those silver things, don’t they? So they have got something right.”