Clark’s happy as Killie show top six appeal
KILMARNOCK 2 McKenzie (22), Couilibaly (70) DUNDEE 0
KILMARNOCK manager Lee Clark hailed his players after this convincing victory hoisted them into the top six.
The Ayrshire club, whose fans protested against major shareholder Michael Johnston during the 18th and 69th minutes here, are still only three points off the bottom of the table but Clark’s glass was half full last night.
“No disrespect to Dundee – it could have been an even bigger margin – but we’re not getting carried away,” he said.
“We’re in the top six but we have a tough game at Aberdeen on Tuesday and we know the league is going to swing around every weekend because it’s so tight.
“Take out Celtic and a few of the teams chasing them then every other side will need to be right on their games. Every manager is saying this month is huge.”
Fans who headed to Rugby Park looking for a winter warmer yesterday wouldn’t have been disappointed by the fare on offer.
Crunching tackles, dodgy refereeing decisions, protests against an unpopular owner and some decent football helped take minds off the falling temperature.
Kostadin Gadzhalov wasted an early chance for the visitors when he fired into the side netting after being teed up by Marcus Haber and, at the other end, Nathan Tyson headed well wide from a good position.
There was an element of luck about Killie’s opener, with Jordan Jones’ shot going nowhere until it was
deflected into the path of Rory McKenzie, whose finish flew in via the inside of Scott Bain’s right-hand post.
Danny Williams at least forced a save from Jamie MacDonald but Killie were worth their half-time lead.
Tyson, who might have been ordered off if Crawford Allan had spotted his off-theball altercation with Darren O’Dea, was centimetres away from doubling Killie’s lead when, after being played in by William Boyle, his shot from 12 yards struck the top of Bain’s crossbar.
It could have been a costly miss – Dundee raced up to the other end and Marcus Haber failed to hit the target with a header from a yard out after being picked out by Kevin Holt.
However, there was no doubt that the hosts were worthy winners. Bain did well to keep out a 25-yard free-kick from Steven Smith but he was helpless when Coulibaly drove a Smith cutback high past from six yards.
After that it could have been anything. To be fair to Dundee, they went for it, piling men forward in an attempt to salvage a point.
The consequence of that, though, was to leave spaces at the back and Bain – the best performer in the visitors’ ranks – made superb saves to deny Tyson and McKenzie. Dundee’s perseverance almost paid off in stoppage time when a bullet header from Williams looked to have pulled one back, only to be denied by a superb reflex save from MacDonald.
“We had a couple of chances with point-blank headers we should do better with and Marcus should have done better but, overall, we weren’t at our best so I don’t have any complaints,” said Dundee boss Paul Hartley.
“My players have been excellent over the last five or six weeks but it’s going to be like this because there’s not a lot between seven or eight clubs and there will be times when it doesn’t go for you.”