Kilmarnock had several new
players in their squad at the start of the
season. They were mostly out-of-contract
players, or those who had been secured on
short-term loan deals from other clubs.
The new squad members included
goalkeeper Kyle Letheren (Plymouth Argyle),
former Crystal Palace winger James Dayton, who
had been recruited from the Glenn Hoddle School
in Spain, Portuguese midfielder David Silva (CSKA
Sofia) and loan players Ben Gordon (Chelsea) and
Mohamadou Sissoko (Udinese).
After narrowly losing the
opening couple of games away to Rangers (1-2)
and at home to Motherwell (0-1), loan signing
Harry Forrester (Aston Villa) and free agent Rui
Miguel (CSKA Sofia) were added to the squad.
A much-needed morale-booster
came during the following midweek with a 6-2
home win over Airdrie United in the second round
of the Co-operative League Cup.
The main feature of this game
was an excellent hat-trick by Conor Sammon, the
first by a Killie player in the competition
since Steven Naismith’s treble in the 3-0
semi-final win over Falkirk at Fir Park on
January 30, 2007.
It was also the first time
Killie had scored six goals in a league cup tie
for 36 years. The last occasion was a 6-0 home
win over Queen’s Park on August 24, 1974.
A few days after the cup win,
the first league points were secured by virtue
of an injury time goal at Aberdeen (1-0). After
the ‘International break’, the first home win in
the SPL was achieved against St. Mirren, by 2-1,
with the winning goal being scored by debutant
Alexei Eremenko, who had just signed on a
season-long loan deal from Ukrainian club
Metalist Kharkiv. The Finnish Internationalist
was actually born in Russia, but had been
brought up in Finland after his father had moved
there as a footballer.
As the season progressed, this
classy, charismatic performer was to become a
major influence in the Kilmarnock team, and
proved to be one of the most talented
footballers to have played for the club in
recent times.
Indeed, he was widely
acknowledged as one of the best players in the
SPL over the season, and was a shade unfortunate
not to be voted the Scottish Footballer of the
Year.
Luck deserted Kilmarnock after
the win over Saints, and they mustered only a
point from the next five games. The four defeats
were all by the same score 1-2, yet Killie were
easily the better football playing team in each
of the games.
The poor run of results began
with a home defeat from Celtic, and was followed
by what turned out to be their only point from
the poor run of results in the 5 games – a 2-2
draw at Hamilton – a game in which Killie were
0-2 down with only eight minutes remaining.
The following week, Dundee
United visited Rugby Park, and again Killie were
unlucky to lose, having dominated for long
spells after the visitors had gone a couple of
goals ahead against the run of play. After the
‘International break’ in early October, Killie’s
unlucky run of results continued with another
couple of defeats that should have been avoided,
away to Hibernian, and a week later, at home to
Inverness.
Manager Mixu Paatelainen,
however, remained upbeat about matters, and was
not too unhappy, as he felt his players were
playing good, attractive and entertaining
football, and he was adamant that they were not
going to change that style, just because of the
recent bad run of results. He insisted that they
would start to get results if they could avoid
some of the defensive errors, and start to take
some of the many, many chances they were
creating.
In the midweek just after the
Celtic game, which was the first of that poor
five game run of results in the SPL, Killie had
a fine 3-1 home win over Hibernian in the third
round of the Co-operative Cup.
In the midweek between the
draw at Hamilton and the home defeat from Dundee
United, Garry Hay had his deserved testimonial
game against Ayr United at Rugby Park.
Before a 3,774 crowd,
Kilmarnock beat their county rivals 4-1, with
Garry scoring the last goal with a penalty. The
Co-operative League Cup quarter final against
Rangers was played in the midweek after the home
defeat from Inverness (the last of the poor run
of five games in the league). The cup encounter
saw Kilmarnock beaten 0-2, but they were far
from disgraced on the night, and were arguably
the better team for long spells in the game, but
Rangers scored the goals and progressed.
However, the football played
and the overall performance by Kilmarnock was
very encouraging, and the confidence gathered
from it by the players was to bear fruit,
results-wise, over the next few months in the
SPL.
On Sunday, October 31,
Kilmarnock found themselves bottom of the SPL
table as they travelled to meet Hearts at
Tynecastle. By the end of the game they were off
the bottom, and were celebrating a 3-0 win,
their biggest winning margin at Hearts ground
since January 10, 1931, when they won 4-1 in the
Scottish League Division 1.
The win sparked a tremendous
run of form that saw them lose only twice in 15
league games, both defeats suffered despite them
being the better team in each game , and
catapulted them up the table and into a
challenging position for a ‘top six’ finish.
The 3-0 win over Hearts was
followed by similar 3-0 wins over St Johnstone
(a) and Hamilton Academical (h) – the first time
in Kilmarnock's history that they had won a trio
of consecutive league games by that score.
A 1-1 away draw with Dundee
United was followed by the first of the two
defeats in the terrific run of 15 games. It was
an unfortunate 2-3 loss to Rangers at Rugby
Park, in which Killie contributed greatly to
their own downfall by giving away three ‘soft
goals’, including a couple of penalty kicks.
Just like the earlier defeats in the season,
Kilmarnock were by far the better football
playing team on the day, but their defensive
errors cost them dearly. A week later, they
recorded a 2-0 home win over Aberdeen, with the
game being refereed by a team of officials from
Israel, due to the strike action of the SFA
referees.
The good run of form continued
with a 2-1 home win over Hibernian, then four
days before Christmas, their long, embarrassing
run without a win at Celtic Park since 1955 was
almost ended.
Whilst admittedly not at their
very best, they were still the more attractive
football playing team on the night, but in the
end they had to settle for a 1-1 draw, Celtic
scoring an undeserved equaliser with less than
five minutes to go.
A terrific 3-1 win at
Inverness, their first win at the home of the
Highlanders since December 16, 2006 (4-3), was a
welcome reward for the excellent travelling
support who made the long and treacherous
midweek trek to Inverness on December 29.
This was followed by a hard
fought, but deserved 2-0 win against St Mirren
on January 2, 2011, the first ever win at the
Paisley club's new home ground by a Kilmarnock
team.
A downside of the win was that
Ben Gordon's loan deal from Chelsea had ended,
after the London club decided not to extend it.
In the following weeks, Killie
made a few more ‘free transfer’ signings in
keeper Anssi Jaakkola (Slavia Prague), and
midfielders Billy Berntsson (GIF Sundsvall) and
Benjamin Laurant (Le Havre).
Hopes of a Scottish FA Cup run
were dashed at Ibrox on January 10, when Rangers
won 3-0. It was a comfortable win for the cup
holders, as Killie never got to grips with the
game, being rather easily ‘bullied’ out of
playing their normal passing game.
Back on SPL duty, the loss of
a late goal against the run of play at home to
St Johnstone saw Kilmarnock held to a
disappointing 1-1 draw. This was the first of
three home SPL games in the space of a week that
unfortunately saw them fail to record a win,
even although they were the dominant force in
each game.
The lack of a ‘killer’
instinct, and defensive errors near the end of
each game cost them dearly.
A midweek 1-2 defeat from
Hearts, whose winner was scored with a few
minutes to go, was followed by a 1-1 draw with
Dundee United, whose injury time equaliser was
their first direct shot on target in the entire
game. This completed the miserable trio of home
results.
A 1-1 draw at Hamilton saw
Conor Sammon score what was to be his last goal
for the club before his reported £700,000
transfer to Wigan Athletic. The Irishman had
been in tremendous form, and it was inevitable
that he was going to move on, having scored 18
goals in 23 (+ 4 subs) league and cup
appearances to that point in the season.
A few new players did arrive
at Rugby Park to help bolster the squad for the
crucial run-in to the end of the season. Killie
signed ‘free transfer’ players in midfielder
Scott Evans (Llanelli), Gabonese international
utility player Willy Aubameyang (AC Milan) and
also acquired striker Kieran Agard (Everton) on
loan.
A couple of days after the
close of the transfer window, Killie enjoyed a
hard fought 1-0 midweek win at Motherwell. The
win was Killie’s 10th in 23 visits to Fir Park
in the SPL making Well the club that Killie have
had the most away wins against in the SPL since
it began in 1998.
Kilmarnock were now back in
contention for not only a ‘top six’ finish, but
also a place in the Europa League, according to
a growing amount of speculation in the media.
Typically, just as soon as these suggestions
were made, Killie suffered their first
back-to-back defeats in the SPL since
mid-October, when they lost 1-2 away to
Hibernian, and were unceremoniously hammered 0-5
at Aberdeen.
The defeat at Easter Road was
extremely unlucky, as like the majority of the
other league defeats prior to it, they had been
for most of the game the better team, but lost
through their own misgivings, rather than by the
opposition being better.
However, at Aberdeen, this was
not the case, and it was clearly obvious that
the home team were more ‘up’ for the game than
Killie. Despite a promising early spell of
dominance, Killie never looked capable of
achieving a result after the home team scored
their first goal, and they went on to suffer the
biggest defeat by a Killie team at Aberdeen
since May 5, 1983 (0-5 in Premier League), and
their worst in the SPL since September 30, 2006
(0-5 at Motherwell). The fact that Kilmarnock
failed to score in the defeat at Pittodrie also
brought to an end a remarkable scoring run that
had seen Mixu Paatelainen’s team score in 23
consecutive league games – the longest ever run
of scoring in consecutive league games in the
same league season by a Kilmarnock team. It is
not the overall record, however, because in the
early years of their Scottish League history,
when there was only 18 games in a league season,
Kilmarnock scored in 44 successive league games
in a row spread over a few seasons, between May
1897 and September 1899.
The heavy defeat at Aberdeen
seemed to act as a wake up call to Kilmarnock,
and they returned to winning ways with
successive 2-0 wins against St Mirren (H) and
Hearts (A). In both these games, Alexei Eremenko
scored a goal, thus doubling his tally to four
goals for the club. By a strange coincidence,
his first two goals earlier in the season had
been scored against both St Mirren and Hearts,
and also at the same venues, Rugby Park and
Tynecastle respectively.
The win over St Mirren meant
Killie had a 100 per cent record against Saints
in the three league meetings for the first time
since the 2000-01 season.
The win against Hearts meant
that Kilmarnock had beaten the Jambos at
Tynecastle twice in the league in the same
season for the first ever time. They had beaten
them twice in the same season at Tynecastle back
in 1964-65, but the first of those wins was in
the League Cup, 1-0 on August 22, 1964, with the
other being the famous 2-0 league title win on
April 24, 1965.
As March progressed, a
re-arranged away fixture with Rangers, brought
forward from April 16 at the request of the
Ibrox club, saw Killie lose unluckily 1-2 by
virtue of a late own goal. They more than made
up for this the following week, when they came
from a goal down to beat Motherwell at Rugby
Park by 3-1. This was, arguably, the finest
performance by Kilmarnock at Rugby Park in the
entire season. Indeed, it was perhaps one of the
best by any Kilmarnock team for many a long time
at their home ground. They completely outplayed
the visitors, and put on a terrific display of
passing football that was widely applauded by
the media, and those who watched it live on
television in homes throughout the whole of
Great Britain.
Little did anyone know at the
time, with eight games remaining in the season,
that this game on the March 19 was to be the
last with Mixu Paatelainen in charge of the
club, and even worse, the last win of the
season.
Around this time it was
announced that former centre back Ryan O’Leary,
who had left the club the previous year had
returned to train with them, and had been given
a contract until the end of the season.
Less than a fortnight after
the game with Motherwell, Mixu left the club to
become the manager of his national team,
Finland.
In the nine months in charge
with assistant Kenny Shiels, the pair of them
had worked tirelessly to transform Kilmarnock FC
from a relegation-bound club into perhaps the
most attractive playing team in the country.
They put together a squad made
up of the remains of the team that had just
avoided relegation the previous season, along
with free transfers and loan deal players from
England and Europe. Although not world-beaters,
they were a pleasure to watch and even had the
opposition support applauding some of the
entertaining football they played at times.
However, Mixu left without
finishing what he had started, and Kenny Shiels
was left to carry on the good work. Initially,
it was only on a temporary three-game basis
until the ‘split’, according to chairman Michael
Johnston, although the Irishman was eventually
to remain caretaker until the end of the season.
A nervy 0-0 draw away to St
Johnstone was enough to give Kilmarnock a point
that, along with results elsewhere, guaranteed
them a ‘top six’ finish for the first time since
2006-07.
Unfortunately for Kenny
Shiels, a horrendous run of injuries and a few
suspensions kicked in with a vengeance about
this time, and he had a depleted squad to work
with for the rest of the campaign.
Defender Frazer Wright picked
up a bad shoulder injury at Perth that ended his
season, and unknown at the time, it proved to be
his last game for the club, as he decided to
reject a new contract offer at the end of the
season, to sign, ironically, for St Johnstone
instead.
A 1-1 draw at home with
Inverness was followed by a heavy 0-4 home
defeat from title-chasing Celtic. This completed
the trio of games before the ‘split’, but Killie
had lost their confidence somewhat, and had
slipped to fifth place, and the hopes of a
fourth place finish and a place in the Europa
League looked pretty forlorn.
A 2-4 away defeat from Dundee
United completely ended the fourth place hopes,
but a well-deserved 2-2 home draw against
Hearts, a game that they really should have won,
gave promise that the fifth place they sat in
could well be maintained.
The scorer of Killie’s first
goal in the draw with Hearts was James Fowler.
This was his fourth goal for the club, but his
first ever at Rugby Park.
In this game, Jamie Hamill
picked up an injury, and with a suspension due
to start, his season was effectively over.
Unknown at the time, this proved to be his
last-ever game for the club. He decided at the
end of season to move to Hearts, rather than
sign on again with Kilmarnock.
The last week of the season
started with a much better performance than the
previous one at home to Celtic 18 days earlier,
but Kilmarnock still lost 0-2. This was actually
the third visit of Celtic to Rugby Park on SPL
duty in the season, and it was a unique and
historic occasion. It was the first ever time in
the 11 seasons since the ‘split’ situation had
been introduced in the SPL that Celtic had been
requested to visit another club for a third time
in the same campaign. They had, until then, been
the only club not to have had this unfair fate
inflicted upon them. The defeat from Celtic
meant a new unwanted record had been set by
Kilmarnock, for it was the first time in their
history that they had lost three times at home
to a team in the same league season. In the
midweek, Kilmarnock were again a shade
unfortunate not to do a lot better than a 1-1
draw at Motherwell. This game heralded the end
of the loan spell of Alexei Eremenko with the
club, as he was suspended for the last game at
home to Rangers. The point won at Fir Park
ensured that fifth place was secured, and a
welcome financial boost would be earned for the
club.
Sadly, the best season in four
years at the club ended miserably, with a
horrible 1-5 defeat at home to Rangers on the
last day, with the visitors celebrating the
winning of the SPL title in the process.
It also saw Craig Bryson,
Mehdi Taouil and on-loan defender Mohamadou
Sissoko play their last games for Kilmarnock.
In the weeks after the season
ended, team captain Bryson moved to Derby County
for an eventual £450,000 fee, whilst Taouil
joined Hearts after turning down a new contract
offer from Killie, and Sissoko returned to his
parent Italian club, Udinese.
