Derek McInnes names what Kilmarnock did well and 3 Hearts players that could’ve hurt them

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Derek McInnes watched his Kilmarnock side pick up yet another red card – then respond by defeating Hearts anyway.

Killie have a wretched disciplinary record this season and Robbie Deas’ sending off at Rugby Park yesterday was their sixth in the league and seventh overall.

The Ayrshire men have struggled to pick up momentum this season and on several occasions it has been playing a man short that has let them down.

But yesterday they ensured that wasn’t the case by putting in a gargantuan effort to still claim the three points.

As poor as Hearts were, Killie didn’t make it easy for them either and deserve massive credit for the way they set about things.

• READ MORE: Ten-man Kilmarnock dig deep to beat powderpuff Hearts – 3 things we learned

McInnes lauds Kilmarnock players

McInnes admits Kilmarnock need to cut out the red cards to stop giving themselves so much to do.

But on this occasion he was over the moon from the application of the players that remained on the pitch.

He said: “It was a really terrific effort from the players. Any time you go down to ten you need a top performance.

“We had to play the game a certain way. We had to stay in our shape. It’s my job to give us the best chance of winning. When Bruce scored it gave us something to hold on to. The boys were just magnificent.

“We’re having to work too hard, too often, because of the red cards, but there’s only positives. We had to sacrifice Bruce at half-time, but he comes away as the match winner. No player likes to come off, but he proved he’s dependable and gets his goal. It was a real team effort, the subs came on, picked up the pace of the game and did well.”

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
1	CelticCeltic	15	14	1	0	44	4	40	43
2	AberdeenAberdeen	16	10	4	2	30	18	12	34
3	RangersRangers	15	10	2	3	27	9	18	32
4	MotherwellMotherwell	16	8	1	7	22	26	-4	25
5	Dundee UtdDundee Utd	16	6	6	4	25	19	6	24
6	ST MirrenST Mirren	17	6	3	8	22	28	-6	21
7	DundeeDundee	16	5	4	7	27	29	-2	19
8	KilmarnockKilmarnock	17	4	5	8	18	34	-16	17
9	HibernianHibernian	17	3	6	8	21	29	-8	15
10	Ross CountyRoss County	17	3	6	8	13	33	-20	15
11	ST JohnstoneST Johnstone	17	4	2	11	20	32	-12	14
12	Heart Of MidlothianHeart Of Midlothian	17	3	4	10	18	26	-8	13

McInnes also admits there were three Hearts players – Yan Dhanda, Blair Spittal and Liam Boyce – that could have hurt his side, but they dealt with them for the most part.

He added: “Good decisions have to be made when you go down to ten men. I know Yan Dhanda hits the bar at the end and he has that quality, he should be running onto a body there. Part of the reason we are playing a flat midfield is for that type of scenario with Liam Boyce coming on, and Blair Spittal’s ability.

“It was the one time he had a wee sight of our goal. That’d have been so harsh on us if it went in. We were due a bit of luck, no doubt about it. We had the most shots on target, even with ten men, and we had some real good moments. Sometimes you do scenarios with ten men in training for 20 minutes or so, and it’s really about planting the seed in terms of decision making.

“To do it for 90 minutes was a monumental effort. Some three points are better than others, but that feels like a brilliant three points.”

Critchley ‘stunned’ by Hearts

On the flip side, Neil Critchley was left ‘stunned’ by his Hearts players’ inept display.

“I’m more than disappointed,” he admitted “I was stunned by what I’ve just witnessed. I thought we started the game quite brightly, the first three minutes, then the sending off changes the course of the game.

“We got involved in the emotion of the game for the next ten minutes, with the crowd being involved, and we made poor decisions with the ball for that short period, and for the rest of the game with the ball.

“We made poor decisions off the ball as well, and one of them cost us a penalty, which ultimately lost us the game.

“But after that, we’ve had ample enough time to get back into the game, and we didn’t produce nowhere near enough quality, intelligence, our decision-making was woeful. It’s like we forgot where the goal was.

“And I can assure you the message was: ‘We need to ask questions of the defence’.

“They were going to put men behind the ball, defend low. And when you defend low, there’s not a lot of space behind, there’s not a lot of space. They give you the space in front, and we just played in front of them, we played into their hands, and we didn’t do anywhere near enough. It was as if we accepted what was happening on the pitch, and I was really shocked by what I saw.

“I’ve just said the same thing to the players. What I say to you, I say to the players, there’ll never be a gap between what I say in the dressing room and here. I give them my honest feelings. They spoke in as a group as well when I left, and we need to make sure that we draw a line in the sand, and that level of performance can’t happen again. That’s why I’m shocked by it, because I’ve not seen that from this group.

“We’ve lost games, but even when we’ve lost, we’ve shown desire, hunger, we’ve gone right to the end, we’ve played with aggression and insensitivity, and we’ve shown none of that today, none of it. If you look at our level of performance after playing in Europe, in some tough games, we’ve produced good performances.

“Now, we’ve not always won, but today that was not a good performance at all. It was a million miles away from that. I sincerely hope that that’s a one-off. If it isn’t, then we’ll have a problem. Only time will tell, and the next few performances will tell me a great deal.”