Goals from Kyle Vassell and Marley Watkins helped Kilmarnock to a 2-0 victory over Aberdeen at Rugby Park in the Scottish Premiership this afternoon.
The captain opened the scoring with the final kick of the first half when he found the bottom corner with a left-footed drive from the edge of the area.
Watkins doubled Killie’s advantage midway through the second half when he robbed Stefan Gartenmann on the edge of his own penalty area before slotting the ball beyond Kelle Roos.
The win lifts Derek McInnes’s side to 4th in the Scottish Premiership table as Aberdeen remain in 10th. Barry Robson’s men are now winless in four matches.
Manager Derek McInnes was pleased to see Killie return to the top four. He said:
“It’s nice to get a clean sheet, it’s nice to see where we’re sitting in the league. I know all managers, I’ve said it, you don’t look at the league table too much… but I like where we’re sitting and I want us to hang about there as long as possible.
“The league is so tight there’s nothing between a lot of the teams and it’s fine margins. Thankfully we’ve managed to win that game out there today.”
The Dons failed to recover from Thursday night’s UEFA Europa Conference League defeat to PAOK and manager Barry Robson admitted that the players may have suffered today from their midweek European exertions. He said:
“For me the biggest problem was, it was my fault, I probably should have freshened the team up more.
“I think it was pretty evident that we looked very leggy first half and it’s hard to try and recapture that.
“We made a change at half-time, we changed the shape and we tried to bring more bodies on but it was probably too late.”
