Bruce Anderson followed up to net the rebound from his first-half penaltySNS

Bruce Anderson followed up to net the rebound from his first-half penalty

Andy Burke
BBC Sport Scotland at Rugby Park

A double from Bruce Anderson helped Kilmarnock to victory over St Mirren and boosted the Ayrshire side's top-six hopes in the Scottish Premiership.

In a tight and often scrappy affair, the home side had the better chances as St Mirren struggled to trouble a resolute defence.

Killie got their noses in front early and the visitors only had themselves to blame. Alex Gogic saw his clearance charged down by Anderson and when the Cyprus international attempted to atone for his mistake, he succeeded only in bundling the striker over in the box.

Anderson's spot-kick was saved by Ellery Balcombe but he tucked home the rebound.

St Mirren striker Toyosi Alunsanya was looking for a penalty at the other end when he went down under a challenge from Lewis Mayo, but referee Colin Stephen was not interested.

Kyle Vassell had a fierce strike palmed away by Balcombe as Killie pushed for a second before the captain's afternoon was cut short as he departed having suffered a nasty looking ankle injury.

History repeated itself after the break as Gogic was penalised for a foul in the box, this time on substitute Kyle Magennis. Anderson stepped up to the spot again and dispatched a far more confident penalty than his first-half effort to double Killie's lead.

Magennis missed a late chance to round things off with a third goal late on when he was denied by Balcombe, but by then the points were secured by the home side.

Solid Killie looking up

Derek McInnes said before the game that after "a significant year" for the club in 2024 the last thing he wanted was for Kilmarnock to become "irrelevant in the league".

This was an important win for the Ayrshire side as they try to edge themselves towards the top six and start looking up the table rather than beneath them.

After producing arguably their best performance of the season in their final home match of the year against Aberdeen, McInnes wanted more of the same against St Mirren and while they never looked likely to reach those heights, they did exert an element of control throughout.

The injury to Vassell will be a concern and manager McInnes will hope he is not deprived of his captain's services for any significant length of time.

At the other end of the pitch, another clean sheet laid the platform for this victory and the Killie rearguard pretty much nullified any threat the Buddies posed.

St Mirren bereft of creativity

St Mirren packed their team with big, powerful players and Stephen Robinson was perhaps thinking that to get the better of Killie on their own patch you first need to win the physical battle.

However, his team was lacking in creativity and struggled to generate meaningful chances.

Olusanya was unable to make any sort of impact on the game, getting little change out the Killie defence.

Roland Idowu had a couple of nice touches early on without creating anything clear cut before fading and being hooked early in the second half.

We know how tough a proposition St Mirren are at their best, but here they fell well short of their own standards.

What they said

Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes: "The clean sheet is huge for us. That's three clean sheets in a row at home now and three victories.

"We didn't need to be brilliant today, we just needed to be really responsible. We scored good goals at good times and our overall play merited the win."

St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson: "We only have ourselves to blame. We showed a real lack of quality with our passing – we had 58% possession and one shot on target.

"We have to get back to the basics again. We've shown on the recent run we've had to climb the table that we're a good side, but not with performances like that. That wasn't acceptable."

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