Kilmarnock manager Steve Clarke believes his side’s consistency is down to those players who feature occasionally rather than those who start every week.
Clarke tends not to make wholesale changes to his starting line-up from game to game, instead choosing to replace just one or two players each time.
And it is the performance levels of those replacements he believes that have kept Kilmarnock at the top end of the table following Saturday’s 3-1 home win over Dundee.
“It helps when you’ve got consistency of selection in your squad,” Clarke said. “I can play Rory McKenzie instead of Chris Burke and he doesn’t let the team down. Same with Scotty Boyd at centre-half, or Kris Boyd at striker.
“For me, it’s not so much about the 11 on the pitch as we’ve changed it around from time to time. We changed the goalkeeper and Daniel Bachmann’s in now and Jamie MacDonald had been excellent before.
“Over a season it’s important to use everybody in the squad and there’s been consistency of performance. All the boys who come in or out of the team are just as important – or probably more important – than the boys who are playing every week because they keep you going.
“That’s where you get your consistency from. It’s from your squad, not your starting XI.”
Dundee manager Jim McIntyre hoped his side would bounce back quickly after suffering their first defeat in five matches.
The Dens Park side take on Aberdeen on Tuesday evening as they continue a sequence of facing top-six sides before the winter break.
“A quick turnaround is always the best way when you’ve not had a positive result so it’s good having a game to look forward to,” McIntyre said.
“We’ll get rested up and ready for that one. We’ve a really tough period as our next four games are all against top four sides.”
Dundee created several chances in the first half at Rugby Park without scoring, and then fell apart defensively after the break conceding three times.
McIntyre knew his players would need to improve on that second-half performance.
“There are going to be ups and downs, slaps in the face, and poor results,” he added.
“It’s about how you bounce back and how you handle it. I need to see a lot better than I did after the first goal went in because it wasn’t good enough. If we play like that we’ll toil, guaranteed.”
