After last night's League Cup defeat at home to Greenock Morton, you could forgive Celtic fans for not queuing up in droves to buy tickets for a visit to Kilmarnock this weekend, particularly given that many of them will have already paid a considerable outlay for a seat to watch the Bhoys play Barcelona next week in the Champions League.
Even before Dougie Imrie's extra-time penalty winner at Celtic Park, Michael Johnston, the chairman at Killie, had noticed that uptake of tickets for the away end was slower than usual. Given that the home support at Rugby Park take up less than 25% of the ground at the best of times, Johnston has shamelessly courted Old Firm fans in the past, to the point of giving three stands to Celtic and Rangers on occasions in recent seasons where either team could - and did - win the title by beating Kilmarnock away from home.
Johnston's apparent affinity to supporting the needs of the Old Firm - culminating in Kilmarnock being the only club not to vote for Rangers to be thrown out of the top flight after their liquidation last year - has long alienated himself from the club's supporters. Add in the summer dismissal of the loud-mouthed but locally popular Kenny Shiels less than 18 months after a League Cup win, and his relationship with the fans was already at breaking point. Attendances for each of their home league games so far have dipped under the 4,000 mark. Given that we know that the club's finances are, at best, a bit iffy - as of January, the club's debt stood at £9.8million (which was actually slightly higher than the year before) - the club desperately need punters in through the door.
That probably explains Johnston's Machiavellian decision to drop ticket prices from £26 to £20 for the Celtic game...for Celtic supporters only. Not for his own supporters. Callously, he seems to have decided that lower prices won't tempt back those who aren't coming, and that the hardcore few who support the team through thick and thin - mostly thin at the moment, apart from Kris Boyd's girth - are so committed that they'll still pay through the nose to watch the team.
After an outpouring of anger and fury, from fair-minded folk as well as Killie's supporters, today the club announced that fans who buy a ticket for Saturday will get a free ticket for the next home match, and that season ticket holders will be able to bring a friend for free for that match. Not a bad deal for pay-at-the-gate punters, but still a rubbish one for season ticket holders, unless their friend pays them for the privilege of accompanying them. Kilmarnock fan Robert McCracken lamented on twitter that it was like "using a tampon to clean up an oil spill." Given the quality of the product on show, I'm not convinced that a free ticket would be considered value for money right now.
Off the park, Kilmarnock are a mess. On it, they are just as much of a shambles. Allan Johnston's Queen Of The South side were practically unbeatable in the second division last season. His Kilmarnock side have managed a grand total of zero wins from seven league matches, as well as a cup exit at home to Championship side Hamilton Accies.
What's worse is that there are so few positives to take from the start to the season. If his side were still getting used to playing a new, attractive style of football, then they might be afforded some slack. Ditto if Johnston was blooding a ton of youngsters. Instead, the opposite is true. The slick passing game so beloved of Shiels has been ditched in favour of a more direct style. Significantly, he made the decision early in the season that forwards Kris Boyd and Paul Heffernan were unable to form a partnership - and dispensed with Heffernan, with the hardworking Irishman signing for Hibs on a free transfer. Boyd, who remains one of the most deadly finishers around, is being used in a target man role, but, even when he was younger and fitter, he struggled to play as a lone striker; now that he is as about as mobile as the Venus De Milo, he is even less effective in that role. The former Rangers striker's threat is reduced further by Johnston's preference for not using wingers; instead the ball is pinged over a rather narrow midfield towards his head.
On transfer deadline day, Johnston brought in Michael Gardyne on loan from Dundee United to play in 'the hole' just behind Boyd and give him greater support. Gardyne is one of ten new players brought in since Magic took over as boss. Given that Shiels gave so many youth team graduates a chance last season, and that a few first-teamers had departed in the summer, Killie's side was expected to be rather young this year. But promising kids such as Mark O'Hara, Ross Barbour, Chris Johnston and Jude Winchester have instead been sidelined in favour of veterans. The only signing under the age of 22 is Celtic loanee Jackson Irvine. There are some players with pedigree such as Scotland squad keeper Craig Samson, Hearts defender Darren Barr and the evergreen Barry Nicholson. However there are also the likes of Mark Stewart, who spent last year in and out of a relegated Dundee team, Kyle Jacobs, who was barely a first choice for Livingston last year, and Ismael Bouzid, the former Hearts central defender who made just three appearances for a team in his native Algeria last season. At best, these players are a short-term fix which prevents the youngsters from developing; in some cases, they are no better than the teenagers that were already there.
That said, it is actually young Irvine who has borne more criticism than any other player so far, which is probably because most of his appearances have not been in his preferred central midfield role, but in central defence. Even now, Johnston has no idea who his best back four are. Against Inverness, he deployed Irvine and three full-backs. Bouzid made his debut against Partick on Saturday; he is the eighth different player to play in defence for the club in seven league games. That doesn't include the experienced James Fowler or Manuel Pascali, who have played either in midfield or not at all, with their nous badly missed. About the only defensive player guaranteed a place is keeper Samson - though many would claim that his understudy Antonio Reguero was superior last season when the duo played for St. Mirren and Caley Thistle respectively.
Johnston does not give the impression of a manager who knows what he is doing. But his namesake chairman has nailed his colours firmly to Magic's mast. He needs Allan Johnston to succeed, not just for his own credibility, but because relegation from the top flight would almost certainly condemn Kilmarnock to following the footsteps of Hearts and Dunfermline towards financial calamity.
L.
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