Alessio methods come under fire
STEPHEN O’DONNELL’S assessment of Kilmarnock’s season to date couldn’t exactly be classed as a veiled dig at Angelo Alessio’s short-lived reign at Rugby Park. More an assault with a blunt object.
The Scotland right-back is less certain on just why things haven’t sufficiently picked up since Alessio was relieved of his duties, with the players warmly embracing the appointment of Alex Dyer and a chance to go back to a style used to such good effect by Steve Clarke.
O’Donnell and Killie now face five games before the split to try to right the wrongs they feel have been perpetrated in Ayrshire this season by sealing an unlikely top-half finish.
“I don’t think [our season] is where we should want to be, but decisions were made . . .” O’Donnell said, leaving the sentence hanging in the air for the listener to fill in the blanks.
“We have a bigger budget than last season and it begs the question: should we not have kicked on? Should we not be trying to compete with Motherwell and Aberdeen?
“We are never going to compete over the whole with Rangers and Celtic, but I think Aberdeen, Motherwell, Hibs and Livingston are teams we should be very realistic about getting close to and we haven’t.
“We have five massive games – cup finals, all of them – but we need to take them one at a time. Top six is where we should be, but the table doesn’t lie. We deserved to be third last season – and we deserve to be seventh now.
“We tried to address it, with the change that took place. The phrase, ‘Stick to what you’re good at’ springs to mind. We have not been able to kick on as we hoped after the change was made. It was not through a lack of hard work, sometimes when you get stuck down there it’s hard to kick on.”
If the departure of Alessio and the appointment of Dyer has not been the sliding-doors moment for Kilmarnock’s season they may have hoped it would be, then their heart-wrenching Scottish Cup defeat to Aberdeen last week may well be.
To be leading with just a couple of minutes to go in normal time and then extra-time, only to contrive to somehow fall to a 4-3 defeat, was difficult for the Killie players to stomach.
The defeat to Celtic on Sunday may have been expected but it is how they now pick themselves up for that could be pivotal, according to O’Donnell.
“Aberdeen the other night was a hard one to take,” he said. “To get beaten in extra-time was pretty devastating. It’s always going to be tough for you [at Celtic Park].
“We changed the shape a bit and started well, but maybe annoyed them a bit. It would have been better if we’d got the penalty in the last 10 minutes, but they kick on a gear and we lose sloppy goals.”