MacDonald pleads for patience
WITH 18 players having been shown the exit door so far this summer, and 11 new recruits having arrived to replace them, it’s an achievement if the Kilmarnock squad can remember each other’s names in these fledgling weeks of the new season, let alone win a match. The sheer scale of the turnover among the playing staff probably means that ‘mate’, ‘fella’ and ‘big yin’ are all still common forms of address inside the Rugby Park dressing room at this moment in time. Their lack of cohesion as a team unit was glaringly obvious on Saturday, with six of the 11 new signings in Killie’s starting XI for this home defeat to a Morton side who now stand on the verge of winning Group H in the Betfred Cup if they can defeat Berwick Rangers at Cappielow this coming Saturday. Jordan Jones was the pick of the new recruits by quite a distance, playing with pace and trickery from his position on the left wing. The rest of them, however, struggled to achieve pass-marks against lower-league opposition. Killie’s goalkeeper Jamie MacDonald has pleaded for patience as the raft of new faces become accustomed to life in Scotland and Lee Clark’s style of football. ‘The goals we lost were really disappointing,’ said MacDonald. ‘Especially the second one — it was a gift to Morton. ‘After losing the second goal, we just didn’t seem to have that urgency about us to get back into the match. ‘It’s not your usual pre-season kind of game. It’s the League Cup and we want to progress to the next round. ‘But it now looks like we are going to have to win our last two games just to finish as one of the best runners-up, which is very disappointing. ‘It is hard trying to bed in so many players and win matches. Things just don’t happen overnight and this was only our second game. ‘A lot of them haven’t played first-team football. This is completely different to what they are used to at Under-21 level in England. ‘But I think it would be harsh to judge the boys on the performance today. ‘At times we played good football, but the second half was disappointing. ‘There was no purpose to our passing after we lost the second goal and we didn’t create any chances.’ Morton fans have been frustrated over the summer at the club’s lack of transfer activity to replace the likes of Bobby Barr, Denny Johnstone, Declan McManus and Luca Gasparotto, but the young men Jim Duffy has promoted into the first team put on a terrific display here. They took the lead after just seven minutes. Gary Oliver played a clever one-two with strike partner Jai Quitongo on the edge of the box and, after selling a dummy so exquisite that the entire Killie defence needed re-admission into Rugby Park, he had space to fire a low shot in off MacDonald’s left-hand post. Morton were comfortable and put the game to bed after 67 minutes. Despite being twice the size of his opponent, Killie centre-half Jonathan Burn got bullied off the ball by Quitongo and, in a style which his father Jose would have been proud of, the striker raced in on goal and slotted the ball home.