Can a first win of the season be the trigger to start moving up the table?
One swallow doesn't make a summer and one win over 10 men doesn't make a top six team - but there's something to build on at last
A lot can change in eight minutes.
With Killie trailing 2-0 to 10-man Dundee on Saturday, I sent a message to a friend saying “I can’t wait to watch this one back”.
Eight minutes later, I followed up with “I can’t wait to watch this one back”. We’ll have a full analysis of the 90 minutes for you in the coming days, but for now it’s worth considering just what that crazy turnaround might mean going forward.
The long wait for a first domestic win of the season has been well-documented, and the need felt particularly acute after throwing away a 3-1 lead against Dundee United the previous weekend.
It’s a managerial cliché to say “we’ll kick on from here”, and just as there were mitigating circumstances for some previous poor performances, three late goals at Dens don’t mean that everything is suddenly rosy in the Rugby Park garden.
However, we’ve seen in the past that one result really can be the trigger for a turnaround.
Under Mixu Paatelainen in the 2010-11 campaign, Killie were bottom of the league at Halloween, having lost six of their opening nine games, and headed to Tynecastle to face a buoyant Hearts side.
They emerged with a 3-0 win - the third a stunning strike from range by Alexei Eremenko - and won six of the next nine as well as drawing at Celtic Park, a run which went a long way to an eventual fifth-place finish.