Mcculloch will blend youth and experience after being confirmed as Rugby Park boss

Former Rangers and Scotland midfielder Lee Mcculloch was finally confirmed as Kilmarnock’s new manager yesterday, four months after taking charge of the team and ensuring their Premiership survival following the resignation of his predecessor, Lee Clark.

Clark signed a remarkable 26 players during his two transfer windows in charge, many of them brought to Rugby Park on loan. Mcculloch, though, will not be following that scattergun policy, preferring to focus on bringing a few senior professionals to the Ayrshire club.

The 39-year-old has also declared that he will, wherever possible, promote from within the club’s youth ranks.

“The challenge I have is that we currently have only ten – possibly 12 – players under contract to the club,” he said. “We have ten loan signings going back so the hardest part of my job will be replacing them. I need to make sure that the players we bring in know this league and know this club. I won’t say anything negative about what’s happened here in the past but I won’t be going down the route of bringing in lots of players on loan.

“There have been conversations with [directors] Billy Bowie and John Kiltie about how I want to try and build a team and that means we can’t rebuild it every single pre-season, which has been the case for too long now.

“I want to bring some continuity to the club so the fans can feel some rapport with the players instead of bringing in people they’ve never heard of and then repeating that cycle every year.

“That’s why this window is so important – it’s probably the biggest challenge of my career. It’s all about bringing in the right players and then hitting the ground running because, if I don’t, I’ll be under pressure from the start.”

Mcculloch, pictured, wants to improve attendances and believes that rearing their own talent will help restore the bond between players and supporters. He was particularly pleased by the fact that Kilmarnock were so strongly represented when Scotland’s Under-20 side beat Brazil 1-0 at the Toulon tournament last weekend.

“We had Greg Taylor, the goalscorer, plus Iain Wilson and Adam Frizzell in the team while Greg Kiltie had to withdraw from the squad due to injury; that’s more than any other club,” he said.

“They are the future for Kilmarnock, they’ve all come through the academy and we have to take pride in that.

“Now that I’ve got the job, I think we’ll need a couple of experienced players to help these kids, along with Kris Boyd, Steven Smith, Rory Mckenzie and Jamie Macdonald.

“There are one or two players whose contracts have expired that I still want to speak to. I had discussions with Jordan Jones, who did really well for me. We gave him encouragement and a little bit of confidence and now he’s in the Northern Ireland squad.”