BOYD: LET’S BE WINNERS LIKE SAINTS
KRIS BOYD has told his Kilmarnock team-mates to take a leaf out of St Johnstone’s book if they are to write a more successful story in this season’s Premiership.
The Killie captain was gutted at losing 2-1 to the Perth outfit at Rugby Park on Saturday and admitted that despite a huge effort to engage the local community this summer, the only thing that will bring crowds back is winning football.
And in that respect, he has nothing but admiration for the way in which Saints go about their business.
Boyd said: “There is a reason why St Johnstone are top six every year.
“It’s an example of if you go and do the dirty things in football then you’ll win games. And they do that really well.
“St Johnstone grind down teams and punish you when they get an opportunity.
“It’s a reflection of where we are in terms of, to give an example, Jordan Jones turns on the halfway line, it’s one-v-one against the defender and Stefan Scougall pulls him back and takes the booking.
“Michael O’Halloran picks up the ball in the corner, drives across our 18-yard box and nobody takes him down.
“I’m not saying you want to see fouls everywhere but you need a street-wise mentality. Sometimes you need to commit fouls, get behind the ball and make it difficult for teams.”
Boyd insisted Saints wouldn’t have lost the goals that Killie gave up at the weekend and added: “With their first goal it was a great finish on Wotherspoon’s left foot.
“But had it been one of our players running at the St Johnstone back four, there would probably have been a foul. That’s the way St Johnstone play football and it has been a success.
“But it is a learning curve. However, if we can play as we did for spells on Saturday then we know that we can hold our own in this league. “
The striker, who scored a sensational free-kick and hit the bar, insisted home results would have to pick up to attract fans back to Rugby Park.
He said: “We engaged with people, we brought them to the club, but we can do all the work off the field, visiting people at their houses to get them back and buying season tickets, yet ultimately it comes down to what happens on the pitch.
“There is a lot of work being done in terms of injecting some positivity but it’s performances and results that count.
“We can chap on doors and talk to people all day long but talk is cheap and if we don’t do it on the pitch then the fans are not going to come.”