Kilmarnock: Club faces relegation, says former coach Billy Brown

Billy Brown was Kilmarnock's assistant manager for over seven years

Kilmarnock face the threat of relegation and the financial dangers of the drop to the Championship, according to former coach Billy Brown.

Brown was Jim Jefferies' assistant at Rugby Park between 2002 and 2010.

Killie won a relegation play-off final against Falkirk to retain their place in the top flight last season.

"The way they're going, whether it's this season, next season or the season after, Kilmarnock are going to get relegated," Brown said.

In the event of dropping out of the top flight, Brown predicts tough times ahead.

"And when they get relegated, there are going to be big problems, and it doesn't matter who the manager is," he added.

Kilmarnock sold top scorer Souleymane Coulibaly to Egyptian champions Al Ahly on Tuesday, receiving a fee in the region of £800,000 for the Ivorian striker.

Coulibaly was one of more than 20 new signings made this season by boss Lee Clark.

Killie currently sit 10th in the Premiership table, four points clear of bottom side Inverness Caledonian Thistle, after 21 games.

Kilmarnock have finished lower in the Premiership table each season from 2011-12

Their final league position has fallen each season since the 2010-11 campaign, when they finished fifth - the last time the club placed in the top six, and only the fourth time they secured a top-half finish since the turn of the millennium.

Director Michael Johnston, who was the subject of a vote of no confidence at the annual general meeting of the Kilmarnock Football Club Supporters Association last June, remains a target for some frustrated fans who want him to leave the club.

"Lee Clark is doing as good a job as anybody can possibly do," Brown told BBC Radio Scotland. "He's trying everything - he's bringing players in, an enormous amount of players, but what could he do? He had to try to revamp the situation.

"Now they've got this money [from the sale of Coulibaly], that'll keep the club going for a wee while, but it wont solve the problems. The problems are still going to be there.

"I was there seven-and-a-half years - the last two, the money problems started to bite and Michael Johnston was very difficult to work for.

"I'm not saying everything he's done at Kilmarnock has been wrong, because he's kept the club going, but really, he doesn't promote good feeling inside the club."