Kilmarnock boss Derek McInnes insists the heavy defeat to Celtic had "nothing to do with" Ange Postecoglou's side as he put the blame on his flops.
It was a convincing margin of victory in the Rugby Park sunshine as Kyogo Furuhashi, Jota and Moritz Jenz fired the Scottish Premiership champions into a 3-0 half-time lead. Things only got worse for the Ayrshire outfit at substitutes Carl Starfelt and Giorgos Giakoumakis ensured a 5-0 demolition job.
It rounds off back to back defeats against the Glasgow giants having been seen off by Rangers last weekend at Ibrox, with the Scottish Championship winners picking up just a point so far this season. They face Ross County away in the Highlands next Saturday as the tough start to life in the top flight continues. McInnes told Sky Sports that his players couldn't hide behind the quality of the Hoops: "Celtic have got good players.
"I am disappointed with the level of goal we shipped today. I thought we Jota 's strike was saveable if I'm honest, but losing two goals from set plays and the nature of those goals absolutely killed us. That is nothing to do with Celtic, that is more my team.
"We are not ready to take on Celtic, clearly. Although we competed at certain spells in the game, when the ball arrived in our box we are disappointed with the level of goal. And that is nothing to do with the level of talent Celtic have, that's down to us. It's a sore one for us. I'm disappointed for the fans that turned up. Maybe not too many people were expecting us to get a result today, but it shouldn't have been five, and that's on us."
He added: "I’m embarrassed by it, but we need to dust ourselves down." When asked about the first goal, he went on: "It comes from our goal kick. We don't kick where we should kick. They win the header and pick up the next one, pass inside Fraser Murray and Kyogo is in too much space. We're not alert, we're not alive. It was out of nothing. We never really got a start in the game,
"We settled into the game after that, it took us a while, but I thought 10-15 minutes into the game we started to at least compete even though Celtic were taking up most of the possession. Again, I felt the second goal was avoidable from where Jota picks it up.
"So there is loads we can look at today. Our season isn't going to be defined by the Old Firm games, it will be defined by games that are coming up for us. I feel as if our season is going to start now, to be honest. That was tough for us today, we are not ready to take on Celtic but I'm more concerned with making sure we don't ship the same kind of goals we lost today."
Killie’s miserable day with injury sustained by new loan signing Jeriel Dorsett. The on loan Reading stopper limped out before half-time and McInnes said: “He heard a pop and I think it’s ligament damage of some sort. It’s too early to make assumptions, but I think we can assume he’ll be out for a period of time, which is far from ideal.
“We were looking forward to working with him, he’s a young boy who is powerful and quick. We’ve still got time in the window to address one or two areas we’re clearly needing, hopefully it’s not too bad for the boy but it doesn’t look too good in terms of the next few games certainly.”
READ NEXT
