Boss brands EK ‘absolute disgrace’ after Shire show
Raging East Kilbride boss Kevin Rutkiewicz branded his side as “an absolute disgrace” after they lost 1-0 at East Stirling in the Lowland League last week – a result that all but ended their slim title hopes.
It was a costly defeat for the K-Park side last Wednesday night, leaving them languishing in sixth place, just days after Rutkiewicz said they can’t afford any more slip-ups if they are to get back in the title race.
Rutkiewicz branded the performance ‘feeble’, said performances like those aren’t sustainable at East Kilbride, and hinted that East Stirling wanted the three points more.
“It’s terrible. I’m not going to hide from the fact that I said it’s the start of a defining week for us,” he said on the club’s own Twitter channel.
“It’s just an abject failure that lies with me and with the players. They have to take responsibility and certainly I’ll take my share of that – I picked the team, set them up and it isn’t good enough on the night.
“It’s just a terrible, terrible, feeble performance with what was at stake for us, and it looked like they had a lot more at stake tonight than we did.
“We’re had a conversation in there and we’ll continue conversations, but I’m hugely disappointed.
“I’m not going to say they’re working harder , as such, but it looks that way at times, the East Stirling boys.
“They ran themselves into the ground, played very well and deserved the win. I’m not going to deny that.
“It’s our job at the side to try and find solutions and there was no point in going like-for-like because they just weren’t good enough.
“Some of the performances were just an absolute disgrace.
“I’m not going to hide from that criticism either, I tar myself with the exact same brush with that performance as my players.
“We just have to be better than that, and it’s not sustainable for anybody at this club to churn out performances like that.”
He added: “That’s the fourth game... there have been 12 points this season that have just shook me to my core a wee bit, and that’s with the greatest of respect to the teams involved.
“But if we have aspirations of where we want to be we have to be winning and we’ve fallen way short on each of those four occasions.”
East Kilbride did find a response on Saturday when they came from 1-0 down to hammer bottom of the table Dalbeattie Star 5-2 at K-Park, thanks to a Kyle Connell double plus strikes from Ronan Hughes, Dylan McDonald and Jamie Docherty.
But, as Rutkiewicz recognised, the damage to their title bid has already been done.
Having led the way earlier in the season, EK are now a huge 14 points off the summit with nine games to play.
This Saturday, East Kilbride travel to 12th place Bo’ness United, as they look to finish the season as strongly as possible. Kick-off at Newton Park is 3pm.