Craig Levein praises Adama Sidibeh and Benjamin Kimpioka after win at Kilmarnock

Posted Monday, August 12, 2024 by PA

St Johnstone manager Craig Levein was full of praise for his strike force of Adama Sidibeh and Benjamin Kimpioka after both got on the scoresheet in a 3-0 win over 10-man Kilmarnock at Rugby Park.

Sidibeh prodded the visitors ahead before slotting home a composed second, after Killie’s Joe Wright had been sent off for two yellow cards in the first 16 minutes.

Kilmarnock hit the woodwork through Fraser Murray and Stuart Findlay but they were unable to breach the Saints’ backline and Kimpioka’s late penalty put gloss on an impressive win for the Perth side.

Levein highlighted the speed of Sidibeh and Kimpioka – who have rarely started together since both signing in January – with the pair running Kilmarnock’s defence ragged all afternoon.

He said: “I still don’t know if we got as many crosses in today as I would have liked, but all credit to Adama for his two goals and then Benji obviously keeps his scoring run going with the penalty.

“Adama’s getting better. He’s getting fitter. Benji’s getting fitter as well. Benji joined us in January and he’s never been fit because he came right into the middle of our season.

“He’s had to fight to get himself in a position where he’s fit enough to play 90 minutes, particularly the way we ask him to play.

“So there’s a lot more to come from both of them. Obviously we’ve got Nicky (Clark) back and young Makenzie (Kirk) has had a fairly good impact already. Then of course we’ve got Uche (Ikpeazu). So I’m looking forward to having them all available.

“Pace is hard to defend against. Particularly if you’re at home and you want to be on the attack.

“And you saw today that any time we managed to get the ball back, we’d go forward quite quickly and try and take advantage of that.”

Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes, meanwhile, bemoaned his side’s defending as they failed to win for a fifth consecutive game in all competitions this season.

Killie are competing in Europe after their impressive campaign last year and, after being knocked out of the UEFA Europa League by Cercle Brugge over two legs, they now travel to Norway to face Tromso on Thursday evening in the UEFA Conference League, with the tie in the balance after a 2-2 draw on Thursday.

McInnes said: “We were architects of our own downfall.

“We’ve had a lot of praise and plaudits for our robustness and our defensive structure and being able to get plenty of clean sheets. But I thought we looked unnecessarily anxious with our front two today, right from the get go.

“And then Joe (Wright) gets sent off, it’s the last thing we needed on a hot day like today with 10 men, with the schedule and all the rest of it. But we battled away, the second goal was every bit as bad though.

“My players have had a lot of credit for their defending. But we’re out the Europa League because we lose a poor goal. There wasn’t a lot between the two teams but we lose a poor goal and we get ourselves emptied out of that.

“We put ourselves under pressure against Tromso. Tromso was a good performance, nobody will tell me anything else but it was skewed by two shocking goals. And I felt today, again, losing that second goal was poor defending.”