Pressure builds on McCulloch
Killie boss feeling the heat as his side hit rock bottom
THERE is never a good time for a performance as poor as this. When it dovetails with a cup-winning Kilmarnock legend in Jim McIntyre looking for a new job, though, it could be seen as particularly troublesome for Lee McCulloch.
It sounds harsh even highlighting the situation. But football is harsh and, make no mistake, the Rugby Park lynch mob are working up a head of steam after eight league fixtures — and a sixth home game — without a win.
Talk of McCulloch’s future filled the air around the toilets and the pie stalls as Ross County carved out a well-merited victory through goals from Craig Curran and Kenny van der Weg — and it would be wrong not to highlight it.
The Kilmarnock manager was berated at various stages from start to finish by sections of the crowd here. His side were booed off the field at the interval and again at time-up.
It really says something that even he admitted the punters would have been justified in being a whole lot more vicious.
That is how bad Killie were in the first half, in particular. It is easy to be critical of the more vocal elements of the club’s support, but they have been paying out for very little in return over the past four years or so since Michael Johnston, then chairman, decided it would be a good idea to get rid of Kenny Shiels.
McCulloch and, more importantly, these players are not offering a tremendous amount to suggest he is the man to bring these lean times to an end.
Digging in so well to get a point at Pittodrie a couple of weeks ago and then coming close to defeating Dundee, this was a case of going right back to Square One — or beyond!
Killie are joint bottom of the Premier League with good reason. And McIntyre’s removal in Dingwall during the week has certainly got the old managerial merry-go-round off and running.
Summer signings such as Chris Burke and Kirk Broadfoot, both former Ibrox team-mates of McCulloch, are sitting on the bench.
The side just does not look dangerous enough often enough. Five goals in eight games is not the kind of scoring rate to get them out of the mire. They play with two wingers, but do not assail teams from all angles.
Attempts to implement a passing style are not succeeding and too often descend into long balls. They are supposed to be fighting for their lives and yet there was not a single yellow card and barely a meaty challenge yesterday. Some of their defending is criminal.
So it was again in this one. McIntyre’s former Ross County players, marshalled from the technical area by new manager Owen Coyle, were easily the better side. It was something of a surprise that they did not win by more.
However, their goals came far too easily. Number one arrived 11 minutes from the break.
Davis Keillor-Dunn delivered a ball in from the left and Curran got in between Gordon Greer and Stuart Findlay to send a downward header into the corner of the net from around eight yards.
County’s second was even worse from a Kilmarnock point of view. Greer let van der Weg skip past him on the touchline and was struggling to recover from then on.
The Dutchman slipped the ball to Curran and there was a spot of good fortune as his attempted pass took a ricochet off the challenging Dean Hawkshaw and landed back in van der Weg’s path.
He nipped into the area and dunted the ball over Jamie MacDonald in to the net. No one tracked him far less tackled him. The Kilmarnock defenders just stood around and watched.
‘At their first goal, their striker comes in between our two centrehalves to get a free header,’ groaned McCulloch. ‘Why we were so deep I’ll never know. For the second goal, the play could have been stopped before that.
‘There was also a bit of luck involved in it. At half-time, with an unhappy crowd and our backs against the wall, we changed the formation and started to go long because maybe playing a nice style of football isn’t the answer any more.’
Kris Boyd had two great chances to get Killie back into the game after replacing Calum Waters at the break. He took a fresh-air swipe at one in front of goal and fluffed his header for the other.
As it turned out, visiting keeper Scott Fox did not have a save of note to make over the 90 minutes.
‘The gaffer (McCulloch) has full belief in all of us and that is what you want in a manager. All 21 of our playing squad should apologise to him,’ said full-back Greg Taylor, quite clearly emotional. ‘We are letting down ourselves, our families and him.
‘The fans are owed an apology as well. The manager has given us everything and we are letting him down massively.
‘We don’t have a ruthlessness and we can work harder for each other rather than being content doing our own individual jobs. We need to start winning.’