Bottom six finish a big jolt for Killie star Jones
JORDAN JONES admits he is ‘devastated’ to miss out on a top-six finish with Kilmarnock.
Defeat at Parkhead on Saturday combined with Partick Thistle’s win over Motherwell means the Rugby Park side will play out their final five games of the season with teams attempting to avoid relegation.
It was Killie who were down there last season, only escaping the Championship trapdoor with a play-off win over Falkirk.
The fact they are nine points off bottom markers Inverness is of little consolation to the man who got Kilmarnock’s strike in this 3-1 defeat.
“We’re devastated not to make top six,” he said. “If you look at the season, we have gone on a lot of runs when we could have kicked on, but it wasn’t to be.
“We can’t beat ourselves up about it. We just have to try and finish as high as we can. We’ve been doing really well and the lads have a lot of belief, so we can’t allow this result to knock our confidence.
“We’re not stupid. We know we were massive underdogs, so we’ve lost and it’s brushed under the carpet.
“It’s about Hearts on Friday now and we’re full of confidence that we can take three points.”
As well as grabbing a shock leveller on 65 minutes, Jones caught the eye for some verbal sparring with Scotland and Celtic captain Scott Brown.
He added: “It was ongoing. He tries to intimidate you, but that’s the way it is. He fouled me and then had a little chirp at me, so I gave him some back.
“It’s part of his image to try and intimidate, but he’s not going to intimidate me, so he can try what he wants. He was the one who ended up with a yellow card.
“Celtic have very good players and you have to respect them, but you only respect them so much. At the end of the day, it’s 11 v 11 and he was the one who tried to intimidate me.”