Kilmarnock looking to make amends for 's*** start' against Hibs

Derek McInnes and his side welcome their fellow early season strugglers to Rugby Park in the final game before the international break.

It’s time for one last push before some well-earned time off for Derek McInnes and his Kilmarnock players.

Hibs are tomorrow’s opponents as Killie gets set for their 11th competitive game since returning to action on July 25 against Cercle Brugge.

Thursday’s disappointing European exit against FC Copenhagen has fuelled the fire for more occasions like that, Tromsø and Cercle next summer. The manager has every faith that his players will be able to recover after a poor start domestically.

“At one point I saw David Gray up there, I'm sure he was smiling and just watching us knock our pan in,” the 53-year-old smiled when asked about this weekend’s Scottish Premiership fixture. “I'm looking forward to the game when it comes round, it's a big effort I'm asking of the players.

“Obviously, we'll get them in and we'll recover and we'll get ourselves ready again. I will freshen the team up and I've got injuries for Liam Donnelly and a suspension for Brad Lyons. So there are issues there but we'll deal with the game on Sunday and hopefully as I say get a positive result. I think the break is going to come at a good time for us.

“We've had a few boys with injuries but Marley Watkins, that's the first time I've been able to put that four together. Kennedy, Armstrong, Watkins and Vassell. A front four that did so well for us last season and played a huge part in us playing these types of games. It's the first time I've really had a chance to commit to that because at different stages all of them missed, whether Danny's missed a game for the birth of his baby, Matty with knocks, Marley trying to catch fitness and shake off and Vassell the same.

“For familiarity last season, the same nine or ten players played all the time and we were pretty rigid and I've not been able to do that. It's been shockingly challenging trying to find the energy of the team and the best practice to try and get a result domestically.

“I think we've got to be honest and say the scheduling doesn't help but we've not helped ourselves with sending offs in those. It's hard enough dealing with what we're going to deal with playing a long part of games with ten men and that's on us.

“I do think for reasons of tiredness and challenges at times, I said I wouldn't complain about scheduling, I said I wouldn't complain about the fixture list for us and we just want to try and set about Hibs on Sunday and try and get a positive result.

“We're starting to get one or two back. Fraser Murray hopefully will be back. Kyle Magennis, coming out of the international break, will hopefully be back. Corrie Ndaba has another week's training so he's getting a bit closer.

“There are areas where we can freshen things up but you're playing against Hibs and it's never easy when you play Hibs. It's up to us to try and have a team together to go and get a positive result.

“I think it's important that we get into that international break with something positive to mess with. We're not too far away from five, six, seven teams in the league. I'm confident we'll make it up but the sooner we do that the better.”