Derek McInnes hails Kilmarnock fans after European exit

Derek McInnes was “grateful” to Kilmarnock fans for their backing after the Ayrshire side’s European journey came to an end against Copenhagen at Rugby Park.

Killie lost 2-0 in the first leg of their Conference League play-off last week in Denmark but they had the vast majority of the 8,083 supporters on their feet in the 16th minute when striker Marley Watkins pulled a goal back.

However, defender Lewis Mayo scored an own goal  in the 67th minute and in the end, the more creative visitors went into the group stages after a 3-1 aggregate win.

The Killie fans clapped and cheered their players at the end of the game, which was appreciated by the Killie boss and his players who lost narrowly to Cercle Bruges of Belgium in the Europa League qualifiers before beating Norwegian outfit Tromso in the Conference League qualifiers.

He said: “I thought the game at half-time was probably how I’d hoped it would be in terms of getting that first goal.

“Their goal comes from an 80-yard pass, and sometimes if you commit to being brave with the press and try to stop a team who like to play, then you are a wee bit susceptible to that.

“And unfortunately for us, boy fizzes one across and Lewis can’t sort his feet out. And you’d have to say, Copenhagen, at that time, deserved an equalizer.

“And it was always going to be tough after that, but we battled away manfully.

“The crowd stayed with the team, which I’m grateful for. You see the way the fans were with the team afterwards.

“It meant a lot to me that, and it was exactly how the players should be acknowledged by the fans.

“And so regardless of the outcome tonight, I said before the game that I was extremely proud of them.

“I wanted them to just have a go to because I didn’t think there would be much in it if we delivered that performance we were capable of and that was the case.

“It’s been exciting. The whole club has been flat out. There’s been a generation of fans who have got to travel in Europe. I’ve spoken to umpteen fans over the last few weeks.

“It’s been a big expense, a big output, a big effort from everybody.  And we’re not used to it, and it’s tough to deal with the scheduling that we’ve had in Europe.

“We’ve beaten Tromso. We’ve drawn with Cercle Bruges, we’ve drawn with Copenhagen. We’ve been alright in Europe.

“We’ve been good output of the effort, and it’s been great. But at the same token, that’s affected us domestically, and still I’m not looking at the league table.

“Somebody’s told us we are bottom my league. So we’ve got work today,once we get back to it, so I want to go into the international break, hopefully with a positive result (against Hibernian) on Sunday.”