'Communication is key' says Killie's Peter Leven
Kilmarnock assistant manager Peter Leven believes communication will be key if the Rugby Park side are to talk their way out of relegation trouble.
Leven is concerned that his team's inconsistency stems from the fact too many of their inexperienced recruits are too quiet on the pitch.
Killie have been up and down all season, the highlight having come last month in a stern display at Celtic Park which earned them a goalless draw against the Ladbrokes Premiership champions.
Since then, though, there has been more topsy-turvy results, the most recent a 2-1 defeat at Inverness last Saturday which dropped Kilmarnock into the relegation play-off place.
Speaking ahead of Saturday's visit of Aberdeen, Gary Locke's number two said:
We are inconsistent right now. After the result at Parkhead, we thought we could kick on again.
But we came back here to play Thistle and got skelped 5-2. Then we played Dundee United with 10 men for 75 minutes but for most of it we didn't even look like we were a man down.
We got a decent 1-1 draw out of that but then we went to Inverness and for 45 minutes we were poor. It's just so frustrating.
The guys are capable of getting good results but then you look at the first
goal we lost against Inverness and you just think to yourself, 'That's a lack of communication'.
We need to talk more. Communication is key. We're a young team, we've got a few inexperienced players in there and I just feel we lack that bit of communication out on the pitch. Simple stuff like telling your team-mate someone's making a run off their left shoulder or right shoulder.
If you're talking out there, it saves a lot of running. We've got guys like
Mark O'Hara, Greg Kiltie, Dale Carrick and Craig Slater who are all under 21. We just need to get them talking more.''