Johnston fears that Killie will lose starlet Slater
ALLAN JOHNSTON has urged the Kilmarnock fans to enjoy the skills of 20-year-old Craig Slater while they can.
The Rugby Park manager fears that the Scotland Under-21 player is destined for bigger and better things after another five-star performance, a week after scoring a spectacular free-kick equaliser against Dundee.
Josh Magennis and Tope Obadeyi bagged the goals that took Killie’s points tally from their first two away fixtures to four.
Johnston paid tribute to Slater’s ability after the youngster had provided the cross for Magennis’ opener.
‘For me, young Craig stole the show with his range of passing,’ said Johnston. ‘We have to be worried that he won’t be with us for too long, so we need to enjoy him while we can.
‘Overall, I thought we were different class. I was really pleased with our performance, never mind the result.
‘Any time we got the ball into their box we caused them all sorts of problems through Ross Barbour, Obadeyi and Slater.’
Crisis may be too strong a word to use to describe County’s plight three games into the new season, but the Highland club is certainly verging on one.
Consecutive defeats by St Johnstone, Partick Thistle and Kilmarnock in the space of eight days, eight goals conceded and only two scored constitutes grounds for concern at least.
The Highlanders are propping up the Premiership but it might have been a different story had County cashed in when they controlled the match in the first half-hour.
Manager Derek Adams said: ‘We had good chances to score and that has been the story of our season so far.
‘For 35 minutes, we were the better side but couldn’t score. They then got a goal we probably could have stopped. It was the same with their second one.
‘After we did get a goal back, we maybe lacked the urgency in the last 10 minutes to grab an equaliser.’
Filip Kiss, Yoann Arquin and Graham Carey all threatened the Kilmarnock goal and Melvin de Leeuw was agonisingly close to connecting with Carey’s cross from the left after 24 minutes.
Barbour also had to time his interception to perfection in the 31st minute to whip the ball away from Jake Jervis as the striker prepared to pull the trigger. But keeper Antonio Reguero was unable to prevent Magennis from finding the net with a header from Slater’s cross in 39 minutes.
And County were slack again as Obadeyi was unmarked when he headed Barbour’s cross past Reguero to increase Killie’s lead after 56 minutes.
Joe Cardle’s cross enabled fellow substitute Liam Boyce to score with a glancing header nine minutes from time, but County had no more goals in the tank.