Three reasons to worry about Killie's start - and three reasons not to

A miserable defeat to St Johnstone has alarm bells ringing, but is the anxiety justified?

They say football fans are fickle, and there’s nowhere the mood can change more quickly than Rugby Park.

After the high of qualification for Europe last season and the memorable trip to Bruges, a slow start to the season has seen boos from the stands in each of the last two home games.

The most recent of those was a dismal 3-0 defeat to St Johnstone on Sunday which has some fans on message boards and social media fearing a return to the relegation battle could be on the cards.

Is that an over-reaction to what was a very poor performance, or is there real trouble coming down the pipe.

Here are three reasons to be worried, and three which indicate the sky might not be falling after all.

Reasons for concern

Let’s take the bad news first - here are some real areas of concern so far this season.

Midfield woes

While nobody expects tiki-taka from a Derek McInnes side, you do expect a well-defined style of play and so far that hasn’t been obvious, especially going forward.

Against St Johnstone the manager went with a 3-4-1-2 with Fraser Murray operating behind a front-two of Innes Cameron and Kyle Vassell.

Following the early red card for Joe Wright that had to be changed, with McInnes sticking with a front-two in the first half before brining on winger Matty Kennedy for Vassell at the break.

Even acknowledging the impact of the red card though, the midfield has been a concern so far this season.

On Sunday the midfield two were Brad Lyons and David Watson, and neither was able to provide much of a passing option in the middle of the park.

Here we can see Robbie Deas stepping out from the back, and he has no real option to pass into midfield - he can either go wide to Kennedy or knock it long.