Killie Boss Steve Clarke demands more hard work in the new year

Kilmarnock boss Steve Clarke insists the key to replicating a wonderful 2018 will be more hard work.

The Ayrshire side signed off the calendar year with a 2-1 victory over relegation-threatened St Mirren to record a fourth successive home win and stay very much in touch at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership.

Clarke's side took a remarkable 74 points from their 38 matches during the year - more than any other top-flight side.

And although the Killie boss remained humble, batting away the statistic as meaningless, he did reveal his plan for continuing their prolonged period of form.

''To replicate this is to keep this squad of players together and to continue to work hard,'' Clarke said. ''The harder you work, the luckier you get. I've got good players here but we won't get carried away.

We've got little targets that we're going to try and reach over the second half of the season and hopefully we can do at least as well as last season if not a little bit better.''

On the subject of the looming January transfer window, Clarke said he was not expecting floods of activity.

''How do you improve this group with no money?'' he asked. ''They will need to be very good players to break into this team. The biggest part for me in January will be keeping this group together.

The board assure me that we don't need to sell anyone in January. If we can do that then we'll have a go at the second half of the season and see how many points we can get.''

It is an altogether different story for Oran Kearney at St Mirren. The Northern Irishman is widely expected to make numerous moves in his first transfer window as Buddies boss.

The Paisley side currently occupy 11th place in the league table and have just 12 points to show from a miserable first half of the season.

Kearney said: ''We've got a squad of 28 in inverted commas, but at this point in time we've offloaded a couple already. There's a few gone back down to England to look for clubs and we're carrying about eight injuries.

I don't need unhappy players here. For the fight we're going to enter into in the second part of the season we're going to need players who are ready to go.

I expect to do business the whole window so it's going to be frantic.''