killie.net

Monday, August 23, 2004

Same old same old

Oh dear. And it was all going so well, too. Saturday’s fixture at Tynecastle was always going to benchmark how far we had progressed from last season; Hearts, after all, finished comfortably third again last year and are now the recognised “best of the rest” outside the gruesome twosome and a legitimate standard to aim for. Unfortunately, what it did prove was that we haven’t progressed much further than an asthmatic ant with heavy shopping (as someone once said).

In going down 3-0, the team again ably demonstrated it’s now legendary generosity to opposition strikers be they tall, small, or histrionic foreigners. Jefferies has made continued noises about our need to strengthen our defence, yet so far he has opted to sign three midfielders and a striker instead. Without any stiffening of the back line – and with the suspended Lilley also missing – on Saturday we saw a re-run of a script all too familiar from last season.

On last season’s form Killie, on average, had to score three times in a match to win it. In other words, if we don’t take the few chances that come our way we’ll get beat because we almost never keep a clean sheet (2 in 38 matches last season!). Hearts once again demonstrated this theory without even having to play particulary well. Indeed, Killie had their fair share of possession and spurned chances in the first half but went into the interval a goal down thanks to a simple cross into the box headed home by the unmarked (and especially small) Weir. As the second period wore on it was obvious that there would only be one winner. Hearts dominated the middle of the park; McDonald buzzed about with no great purpose, Locke resorted to type and constant fouling, and wingers Invincibile and Johnston took the chocolate-fireguard option.

The second goal duly arrived - another simple cross into the box and - what do we have here? - some foreign bloke to head home unmarked. Jefferies changed it about a bit after that but it was a lost cause. In fact, substitute Murray’s main contribution was to concede a penalty and hand Hearts a three goal advantage. You felt for the wee man. It was one of those days. Unfortunately, we’ve seen too many of these in recent times and it looks like there’s a lot more to come. On Saturday’s evidence we’re still some distance behind the Gorgie pacesetters. With or without heavy shopping.

¶ 8:05 PM

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life as a Killie fan

if you care to, you can watch the Killie's season unfold here in dramatic fashion. ok, it won't be dramatic. it'll be full of the usual stuff, but i'll do my best to make it interesting. you'll get the away U21 reports here too. i should be committed.