'On me' - Neil McCann fronts up over Kilmarnock's heavy defeat to Celtic

McCann accepts resposiblity for 5-1 loss

Kilmarnock boss Neil McCann accepted full responsibility for his side's heavy 5-1 defeat to Celtic after his decision to play more expansive football against the reigning Premiership champions backfired.

The Rugby Park outfit were thrashed 5-1 at home to Celtic on a driech afternoon in Ayrshire and McCann admitted the buck stopped with him, despite yet more glaring defensive lapses for a second consecutive game.

Kilmarnock have now conceded nine goals in their opening two league outings, which will be of serious concern and is an area McCann acknowledged needs to be rectified immediately.

"I'm disappointed because we've suffered a heavy defeat but I'm taking responsibility," he said. "I've asked the players to go a bit expansive and try to play. We've made mistakes that were severely punished, so I'm going to take that on the chin today.

"Of course, there needs to be an element of risk assessment when we're asking them to play in that way. It sounds daft sitting here on the back of a hiding, but I actually felt we were the better side for the first part of the game. We were forcing things and Celtic were playing on the counter-attack. They're always going to be dangerous because of how we're attempting to play and a wee bit of quality just evaded us in the final third.

"We responded well to going behind but then they get the second and the third. At half-time, it's a tough job to regroup for the second half. We concede another one by trying to play out from the back when we didn't have to and Max Stryjek has apologised for that, he's made a big mistake that's been punished.

"But I'm not a guy who takes a step backwards, I'll front up. That's on me today. We've got a massive game on Friday now [against Ayr United].

"We've conceded five and it could've been a few more, but it's still early in the season and we're trying to stitch things together. We've got a few new boys in there who are trying to understand how we want to play, which comes with risks. But clearly the defensive return in the last two games has not been great."

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