Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes admitted his side’s discipline needs to improve after Liam Donnelly received their sixth red card of the season in the 1-0 defeat to St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park.
Makenzie Kirk headed in the only goal to settle a tight contest, with midfielder Donnelly shown a second yellow in the closing stages for a late challenge on Drey Wright.
McInnes has urged his players to avoid picking up needless yellow cards, though he is adamant too many reds are being dished out by officials this term.
He said: “Our discipline isn’t helping us and we have to be better – we have to be squeaky clean.
“I have told the players to stop picking up yellow cards in the first half because it puts undue pressure on you.
“We are seeing a lot of red cards and I guarantee you, a lot of them would not have been given last season.
“The bar has been set low for whatever reason and we have to deal with that. I am not excusing Donnelly because once he’s booked, he can’t make that challenge.
“For the first one, the boy cut across him and rolled over. He didn’t pull him or stop a promising attack. It’s a foul but it’s not a yellow card.
“Liam Donnelly, having been booked, needs to show restraint. I am annoyed by that and getting a bit fed up with it, and it needs to stop to be honest.”
McInnes also bemoaned his side’s travel disruption, with the game pushed back 15 minutes due to delays on the roads as the country battles Storm Bert, though he did not use it as an excuse for the loss.
He added: “There was loads of disruption and the boys were on the bus for four-and-a-half hours getting up here.
“We planned to have a pre-match meal at Dunblane Hydro and that had to be knocked on the head.
“But we didn’t allow that to impact us and we actually started the game really well and that’s credit to us.”
St Johnstone manager Simo Valakari also praised his team for adapting to the conditions, with the weather affecting their training schedule during the week and players arriving late for the match.
He said: “We don’t use excuses. But it has been a very demanding week for training.
“We’ve had to adapt because of the weather – we probably only had one football session all week. Some of our players arrived a little bit later than the Kilmarnock bus.
“It was about 2pm for half of the starting line-up. They were sharing cars.
“That gives me even more satisfaction. After the first half we could have thought ‘I’ve been sitting in my car for hours, not training all week, I can’t play better than this’. But no, no excuses. We went and got the three points we needed.
“I said to the players ‘I have missed this kind of football for 25 years!’ This is proper Scottish football and I love it. What the players went through – it wasn’t easy. That’s why I’m so happy.”
