El Makrini wary of drop

Mohamed El Makrini is desperate to avoid a relegation fight with Kilmarnock after his previous brush with the drop saw him trapped inside a stadium for three hours as angry fans rioted.

The Dutch midfielder was part of the Roda side demoted from the Eredivisie in 2018 after they lost a play-off with second-tier outfit Almere.

Those scenes are unlikely to be repeated at Rugby Park but El Makrini knows Killie could find themselves in a battle at the bottom if they cannot halt their poor run when they host

Ross County today. The Ayrshire side have dropped into the bottom six after losing seven straight league games.

El Makrini said: “In a season you have ups and downs but this is a really bad down for us. It’s hard to stay positive but you need to do that otherwise things will only get worse.

“I was relegated one time before with Roda. We went down through the play-offs.

“It was the worst experience of my career. After the match we couldn’t get out of the stadium because the fans were frustrated. There was a lot of bad things and I would never want that for any club and definitely not Kilmarnock. The fans were really angry. The game finished about 10 o’clock but I didn’t get to go home until 1am because we couldn’t get out of the stadium.”