Football Season Guide

Kilmarnock are looking to build upon last season's decent campaign that saw them finish as the best team in the bottom half of the league. Although they only won two of their final ten games, it was enough to finish 7th although they were well behind 6th placed Partick Thistle. They were hampered by Lee Clark leaving in February but the board were sufficiently impressed with interim manager Lee McCulloch's efforts that he has been appointed as manager on a full time basis for this season. With a full pre-season to work with his squad and having become accustomed to them over the last campaign, it certainly seems like a smarter idea than bringing in a different manager and early season results seem to back this. They comfortably escaped from their League Cup group despite losing 1-0 to Ayr in the opening game which may just have been rustiness as they followed it up with three victories. McCulloch has looked to strengthen his squad with more arrivals than departures and the likes of Dom Thomas who impressed for Motherwell's development squad could prove to be one of the gems. Nathan Tyson is one of the more high profile players to leave after failing to really impress in his spell at the club and Lee Erwin from Leeds will replace him up top. Experience is added to what has been a young squad with the likes of ex Rangers players Kirk Broadfoot and Chris Burke who both know the Scottish game inside out.