Boyd takes weight off Lee’s mind
Double eases Killie relegation fears
AS he took his seat in the Rugby Park press room, pausing only to draw breath and wipe a bead of sweat from his brow, Lee Clark looked physically spent.
In securing his first victory in his seventh match as Kilmarnock manager, Clark kicked and headed every ball from his position in the dugout. He shouted, screamed and cajoled his players through every second of the 90 minutes.
‘I’m really hoarse,’ Clark announced as he collapsed into his chair. ‘But my wife will probably be happy as she won’t hear me tonight if I’m moaning and groaning. But, honestly, my personal record isn’t the important thing. The fact the team won was far more important.’
Clark and his players were fully deserving of this victory over a lacklustre St Johnstone, producing some of their most enterprising football of the season. Yet it was tinged with a bittersweet flavour.
As the full-time whistle sounded, the echoes of Paper Roses ringing around Rugby Park were replaced by groans as the stadium PA announcer informed the crowd that Hamilton had beaten Dundee to ensure that the status quo remains at the bottom of the Premiership.
‘It’s a great result for us, but it doesn’t change much in terms of the league table,’ said two-goal hero Kris Boyd. ‘What it does do, though, is it gives us a bit of momentum going into the split.
‘St Johnstone are in the top six and we have just beaten them 3-0, so that shows what we are capable of. We need to say a big thanks to Jamie MacDonald. He was outstanding with some of the saves he made. But we definitely deserved to win.’
Killie remain in the relegation play-off spot, four points adrift of Accies, but that should not undermine how much confidence they should take from this result. This was the first time they had scored more than two goals in a match this season.
‘We want to catch Hamilton, along with a couple of other teams just above us in the table,’ Clark added. ‘Nothing has been achieved yet, but putting in performances like this will always give you a chance of winning matches.’
Leaders have emerged in the spine of the Killie team in the shape of Miles Addison and Julien Faubert. Their football was coherent and purposeful.
The inclusion of both Boyd and Josh Magennis hinted Killie might line-up in a bold 4-4-2 formation, but it never materialised. Instead, Clark deployed his team in a 4-2-3-1 system, with Boyd as the lone striker and Magennis stationed wide on the right wing.
The pair combined to good effect on 23 minutes. Magennis got clear of his marker down the right and flashed a low delivery across the face of goal. In typical fashion, Boyd managed to engineer himself a yard of space to meet the ball on the halfvolley, but it rebounded back off the post and into the grateful clutches of Alan Mannus.
But that was only a taster of what was to come, and Boyd would notch the opening goal for Killie just two minutes later from a well-worked free-kick routine. Magennis stood over the ball initially. He rolled it square to Kallum Higginbotham, who then put his foot on the ball and steadied it for the onrushing Boyd to cleverly bend a low shot around the wall and into the bottom corner.
St Johnstone are actually now secure in the top six, but they were below their best here. The Perth Saints were blunt in attack and their defence operated with enough hesitancy as to make a striker of Boyd’s advancing years look like a young whippersnapper.
Killie were sharper in every department, so it was no surprise when they doubled their advantage and put the game to bed on 65 minutes. It was also of little surprise that it was the outstanding Magennis who was again at the heart of it.
Greg Kiltie scurried his way across the edge of the box before spreading the ball wide to Magennis. He then got his head up and spotted Higginbotham unmarked at the back post and delivered the ball accordingly. The Killie midfielder is diminutive in size, but that did not matter as he was afforded acres of space to plant his header beyond Mannus.
The afternoon would not have been complete for Killie without some more heroics from the consistently outstanding MacDonald, who made a spectacular flying save to his right to keep out a stunning volley from Chris Millar.
Boyd added some gloss to the scoreline by notching his second of the afternoon right at the death from the penalty spot. After Plamen Krachunov had tripped Rory McKenzie inside the box, Boyd stepped up and calmly slotted the ball past Mannus.
Saints boss Tommy Wright said: ‘We played OK for spells. But the defeat itself should not overshadow the fact that we have secured our place in the top six yet again, which is a magnificent achievement for this club.’