Former Kilmarnock boss Angelo Alessio has revealed he still gets Killie fans asking him why he got sacked from the Rugby Park side.

The Italian was axed in December 2019 after just six months at the Ayrshire club, with Killie sitting in fifth place in the league, although they were dumped out of the Europa League qualifiers by Connah's Quay Nomads
Since then, the 58-year-old former Juventus assistant manager has only had a short spell as boss of Indonesian outfit Persija Jakarta and is currently between jobs.

But he admits he is still puzzled why he got the axe from Killie.

He said: "I consider my time at Kilmarnock a good experience, even if I was dismissed when we were fifth in the league.

"We were third in October, I had also received the Manager of the Month award, and then in mid-December after two defeats they sacked me.

"And it wasn't just to my surprise, it was to the amazement of the fans who still send me kind messages about my time at the club to this day.

"I didn't really accept how it ended. They were then eventually relegated.

"They sacked me before my first real transfer window. I had already brought two Juventus players with me to Scotland and there would have been more.

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"The Scottish Premiership is different from most leagues in Europe because only Celtic and Rangers have economic power and 60,000 fans every week.

"The rest pick up the crumbs that are left.

"My memory of Scottish football is the great spirit of the players. There are a lot of high balls to the striker who is usually very tall. That's how everyone plays apart from Celtic and Rangers, who have very good players.

"The Scottish players never give up. They fight to the end in an old-fashioned way and that's why I liked it.

"Kilmarnock is a small town with 45,000 inhabitants. It's quiet and I have a very good memory of it."

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