Derek McInnes wants Kilmarnock to replicate their fine home form on the road

Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes has challenged his players to replicate their impressive home form when they are on the road after his side moved up to fourth in the cinch Premiership with a 1-0 win over Motherwell at Rugby Park.

Innes Cameron’s strike early in the second half gave Killie their third successive home win.

However, they remain without a win away from Rugby Park this season and McInnes has admitted he may need to tweak things ahead of his side’s trip to Easter Road to face Hibernian next weekend.

He said: “I do need to maybe look at things because normally I just pick the same team. When we’ve won a game at home, I usually go ‘on you go again, lads’ – whether that’s home or away. Maybe I need to look at that because it’s the only thing I can affect.

“But I need my players to have the confidence to go to Easter Road and deliver a performance and we can get a result there. There’s no two ways about it.

“We’ve got to try and go with that approach and mentality and attitude to set about the task. Hopefully we can because if we can get anything close to our home form, we’re going to have a right good season.”

The Killie boss was also full of praise for young central midfielder David Watson, after the Scotland youth international – who set up Cameron’s winner – delivered another strong performance.

McInnes added: “We knew we needed legs in the middle of the park. We needed Watson and (Brad) Lyons in there. Brad got man of the match, but it could have been David.

“The two of them were relentless. David is just all-action. He gets better and better.”

Motherwell boss Stuart Kettlewell, meanwhile, hopes that Tuesday night’s match against bottom side St Johnstone is the game that the Steelmen turn a corner.

After a strong start to the season, Well have taken just one point from the last seven games and now sit just a point ahead of the relegation play-off positions.

Motherwell travel to McDiarmid Park on Tuesday before hosting Hearts on Saturday and Kettlewell said the fact the matches come in quick succession will only be a positive for his side if they can start to put points on the board.

He said: “We’re working incredibly hard to try and turn that corner. We’re trying to come up with different solutions. We’re trying to tweak and change things where we possibly can. I can assure you that we’re putting in the hours to see if we can try and rectify that.

“That’s where I’ve always been, right throughout my football career as a player, a coach and a manager. I don’t think you get anything by dipping your shoulder and shirking the question.

“But we have to meet it head on and we have to be brave enough to put ourselves out there on Tuesday and see if that’s the night that we can turn a corner.

“The coming games are only good if we really take part in them and start to amass points, however that might be. Then those games do become good, but only if we take part and start to change our fortunes and change our luck.”