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Winger Chris Burke admits he was shocked to learn of Steve Clarke's arrival at Rugby Park, but is relishing the impact he has made at Kilmarnock.

Former West Brom boss Clarke was assistant to Jose Mourinho at Chelsea, Gianfranco Zola at West Ham, and Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool.

He became Killie manager in October.

"Trust me, when we heard he was coming, everybody was a little bit shocked, and happy and excited to work with someone of his calibre," Burke said.

"He has managed in the Premier League and worked with the top managers in the world."

Since taking over, Clarke has guided the embattled Ayrshiremen to draws at Ibrox and Celtic Park, with Saturday's 5-1 thrashing of Partick Thistle their first home Scottish Premiership win of the season, and their heaviest league win since 2006.

Kilmarnock are bidding for a third successive win when they travel to Dingwall on Tuesday night for a Premiership meeting with Ross County.

"He has brought his experience and bringing [assistant manager] Alex Dyer has worked very well," Burke, 34, added.

"Since the gaffer came in you can see the performances have improved and that is shown in the results.

"Different managers bring different ideas and everyone learns until the day they retire.

"The young ones are taking it in like a sponge and the experienced players are improving as well.

"But you can't just think we are doing well and take the foot off the gas, we need to capitalise on it.

"So we are looking to make sure it is three wins in a row."

'We are looking to keep building'

When Clarke left St Mirren for Chelsea in 1987, Ross County were still a Highland League team.

Ahead of the trip to tackle the Staggies, former Scotland defender Clarke said: "This will be my first visit to Dingwall to play my first game against Ross County and I look forward to it.

"They have come a long way so credit to the directors, the owner, the people who have set it up and got them to the position they are in.

"If people are prepared to put in the time, the effort and money, and these teams can prove they deserve to be at the top level then that's great, that shows a good level of ambition.

"We are looking to keep building. If we can continue the level of performance hopefully the points will keep coming."

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If you don't know why it doesn't make sense to send Kilmarnock to Ross County in December (or the alternate fixture) in midweek then you are a fucking idiot.
 


Someone's having a long drive to, or from, Dingwall at some point during the week. It's probably just your turn. We have to go up there on the 27th. Stop crying about it ffs
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1 minute ago, RandomGuy. said:

 


Someone's having a long drive to, or from, Dingwall at some point during the week. It's probably just your turn. We have to go up there on the 27th. Stop crying about it ffs

 

Perth to Dingwall - 2 1/2 hours

Kilmarnock to Dingwall - 3 hours 45 mins.

 

Thats on a good day.

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Perth to Dingwall - 2 1/2 hours
Kilmarnock to Dingwall - 3 hours 45 mins.
 
Thats on a good day.


I still don't see the issue, I'd guarantee every other club has had a midweek game away to County since they got promoted, are you expecting to be exempt from it?
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One of my worst journeys from a match was Tuesday 1 March '16.  I got home from Kilmarnock at 3am because the supporters' bus wasn't running and there was heavy snow from Blair Atholl to Aviemore, so it was 20mph driving for longer than I care to remember.  Do we abandon midweek fixtures completely, or just between November-March inclusive?  We support football teams based in Scotland, we're going to have bad weather in the winter, it goes with the territory.

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2 hours ago, Dindeleux said:

If you don't know why it doesn't make sense to send Kilmarnock to Ross County in December (or the alternate fixture) in midweek then you are a fucking idiot.

 

 

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

 


I still don't see the issue, I'd guarantee every other club has had a midweek game away to County since they got promoted, are you expecting to be exempt from it?

 

As expected.

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I'd rather see Killie start with the flat 4-4-2 with wingers than the diamond with Jones at the top of it, because I see Jones as the big danger and Naismith could manage that capably on the flank.  County are weak when Davies gets turned, so having Jones running in those channels between centre-back and full-back is probably the way to get at them most*.  In theory Routis should pick Jones up in those positions, but the jury is still out on his positioning/concentration there - it will be a different challenge than marking the static Pena on Saturday.

*Apart from attacking Kelly at left-back, but he went off injured vs Rangers so it will probably be Van der Weg at left-back tonight.

With Curran scoring on Sat he'll be preferred up front again.  I think the only questions on who will play is Kelly/Van der Weg at left-back and Lindsay/Draper in midfield - I'd prefer the latter because he wins all of his duels but is predictable to play against, whereas Lindsay's speed in his late runs are more difficult to pick up and getting that extra body in the box is needed.  Maybe the squad will be rotated a bit more though, with a lot of games still to play this month.

 

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13 hours ago, Dindeleux said:

Perth to Dingwall - 2 1/2 hours

Kilmarnock to Dingwall - 3 hours 45 mins.

 

Thats on a good day.

So what do you suggest should be the maximum travel time allowed for midweek games? Should it be by bus or car?

As BB says it’s Scotland, we get bad weather. Travelling for mid-week games is a pain at any time of the year, leaving work early, getting home late etc.

Of course it’s all our fault for being so far away and I’d like to heartily apologise for us being based outwith the central belt. If it’s any consolation we’ll probably give you the three points for your troubles.

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I don't think it's the distance itself that people are complaining about - it's the timing of the game. If you're running an event and you want as many people as possible to come to it, you try and pick a date/time that suits as many people as you think will be interested in it to come. You don't pick a time just for the sake of it and hope that people turn up despite your poor decision-making, you pick the best date and time for it so as to get as many people in the door as possible. The league clearly haven't thought about this and have just let the fixture computer do its thing.

The same should apply for games of football. I've always thought that the Friday night games should be played between clubs that are fairly close to each other so as to maximise the crowd sizes (I know the TV companies don't care particularly about that, but that's their issue). Because this game isn't being televised, that means that you surely want as many fans to turn up to get a big gate. Many people won't be finishing their work until 5 meaning they won't be able to travel. You then have those who will see the weather outside and not bother. Does this sound like a particularly good recipe for attracting away fans to come?

Fair play to those who do travel from Killie fans to the County fans who have to travel on small roads for ages just to get to Dingwall. I hope everyone sees an entertaining game.

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As another poster pointed out, all teams have to come to dingwall at some point. Why should it always be st Johnstone or Aberdeen on a winter weeknight just because they’re marginally closer? 

Every year this shit comes up and every year it’s infuriating. We do it every fucking week in all weather, as do caley, Elgin, Peterhead etc etc. It’s what Kilmarnock sign up to by taking part in the league so get on with it. 

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I think the point being made here is the scheduling of a fixture like this . I appreciate that the highland teams have the greatest distances to travel but I’m sure they wouldn’t have it any other way . In the past the authorities made allowances for this , see the new year derby games for instance the chance of poor weather  , no or very limited public transport it made sense to keep travel to a minimum, `That was of course before the TV companies were pandered too 

Had this been a rearranged fixture I don’t think the angst would have been as great tbf 

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So what do you suggest should be the maximum travel time allowed for midweek games? Should it be by bus or car?
As BB says it’s Scotland, we get bad weather. Travelling for mid-week games is a pain at any time of the year, leaving work early, getting home late etc.
Of course it’s all our fault for being so far away and I’d like to heartily apologise for us being based outwith the central belt. If it’s any consolation we’ll probably give you the three points for your troubles.


Think you’re being a bit sensitive here. We are just as far away from you as you are from us and I would say the same if they made you travel down here tonight.

They could’ve played the fixture at a better time, I don’t know why anyone is disputing this.
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County could really do with these three points tonight.  We have a bit of a "plucky but unlucky" tag on the County team these last few weeks, whilst we were absolute horse $hit against Dundee the matches away against Hearts and Rangers looked like delivering a much needed away win and satisfying draw but ultimately got us only one point.

I think the pressure is on County tonight, hopefully we can respond favourably to that pressure, a performance like we saw in the first half against Motherwell would be great.

Boring 0-0 draw on the cards then.

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As expected.
Teams play midweek about seven or eight times a season, before the split, tell me what fixtures you'd have in there? Or are you expecting every County v Aberdeen, County v Saints game to be midweek? It's just your turn, County will probably be midweek away to Killie next season. It happens.
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