No excuses for makeshift defender Wilson after loss
IAIN WILSON admits it was a little disconcerting to suddenly find himself a makeshift centre-back at Aberdeen as Kilmarnock’s defensive crisis deepened.
Left without four defenders through injury and suspension, Rugby Park manager Angelo Alessio had to be inventive, hence the 20-year-old midfielder’s conversion to partner Gary Dicker, also required to play out of position, in the centre of the Killie defence.
It was perhaps unsurprising, then, that neither was around when Curtis Main’s diving header opened the scoring early for the hosts, nor that Sam Cosgrove, seemingly in unstoppable scoring form with his 16th goal of the season, did what he does best and used his 6ft 2in frame to bullet home his aerial effort.
Half an hour had not been played and Wilson knew he was in the lion’s den, but was pleased to have found a place in the starting line-up and offered no mitigation for his failings.
“Midfield is my best position,” he insisted, “but I have played centreback, so there can be no excuses.
“You want to play against the better players, like Cosgrove, and you just need to get on with it.”
Wilson, a regular in the Scotland under-21 team, spent the second half of last season on loan to Queen of the South and was on course to return to the Championship club before deciding to remain at Rugby Park and fight for his place.
That decision has yet to pay off. “It hasn’t worked out so far,” he said, “and that was why I was glad I got this chance. My aim is to push and to try and get a chance in midfield but we have good players in there and I just need to keep doing the best I can whenever I get the opportunity. I played centreback a couple of years ago and I like playing with Gary because he is a good player. It was strange having so many central defenders out but we just need to deal with it.”
Kilmarnock, while trying to retain a sense of discipline and shape, fell woefully short and were dominated by a Dons team who were too good for them on the day.
Scott McKenna’s late strike for Derek McInnes’s side underlined that superiority and lifted the gloom still around following their 4-0 home defeat to Celtic nine days ago.
Shay Logan, the ever-present Pittodrie full-back, pointed out that the “bounce back” has since yielded six points with he and his colleagues having won at Hamilton in midweek.
“A reaction was needed as last weekend wasn’t good enough and the manager let us know that,” he said. “Nine points out of nine was a real possibility and we’ve taken six following two good performances. So, hopefully, we can continue up at Ross County this weekend.”
Logan recognises the strength of Celtic and Rangers in the battle for the title and accepts his club may have to settle for third.
He said: “If third is the best we can do then we want finish third. Motherwell are there at the moment and having a good season, but with no disrespect to them, we believe we are a better team than they are.”
HAMILTON may play at the Fountain of Youth stadium but football can have a habit of adding years to you. Those of an Accies persuasion had the brows furrowing after just 36 seconds on Saturday as Ross County scored when folk were still nestling their posteriors into a seat.
Some 87 minutes later, Hamilton were leading 2-1 but with the clock ticking down, County fashioned a late equaliser to provoke groans of brassed-off anguish. The Highlanders just about nabbed all three points in a fraught, nailnibbling finale too as the pendulum swung and the New Douglas Park denizens were just about reaching for the regenerative elixirs the sponsors of their stadium specialise in.
“That felt more like a defeat and I was speechless for a while afterwards,” admitted George Oakley, who thankfully rediscovered his powers of oral communication in time for his post-match summing up. Oakley had put Hamilton 2-1 up just after the hour as the galvanised hosts took charge of affairs in the second half but Brian Graham’s 88th-minute equaliser was a real scunner. “I thought I was going to be the matchwinner and I was almost 100 per cent certain of that going into the last few minutes,” added Oakley. “We’ve been so good defensively this year and hard to beat. That’s probably been our biggest improvement this season so that makes this so frustrating.
“It does feel like we gave away two points. But we have a great fighting spirit at the club no matter what anyone says. We’ll have a couple of nights stewing over this result and being annoyed at what happened. But now we’re ready to go again and we’ll look forward to taking on Kilmarnock.”
Graham, meanwhile, continues to play something of a waiting game in terms of getting into the starting line-up for County. Despite starting against Rangers in midweek, Graham was back in his familiar perch in the dug-out at the weekend.
“I’m not a quitter and I’ll keep fighting for my place for the rest of the season,” he said. “All you can do when you’re on the bench is come on and try to make an impact. When you get your opportunities you need to start taking them and I think I’ve been doing that recently.”