Killie 'must keep believing' despite back-to-back defeats - Kiltie

Greg Kiltie says Kilmarnock players "would be silly" to write off Neil McCann's style so early in the season. After progressing to the next round of the League Cup, albeit only scoring two goals in their group stage campaign, Kilmarnock have lost both of their opening Premiership matches. A 4-3 defeat at St Johnstone in their first game of the season was followed up by Sunday's 5-1 defeat at Rugby Park to champions Celtic. And with nine goals conceded in two games, midfielder Kiltie insists the side need to shore up at the back. "Defensively we need to be so much stronger and not give away the goals we are giving away at the moment," he said. "We pressed them [Celtic] high, but once they got in our area we still needed to defend so much better. Maybe they got chances from us being open, but I don't think the goals necessarily came from that. We need to take it on the chin and do so much better individually and collectively defensively." McCann took over following the departure of Stuart Kettlewell towards the end of last season as Kilmarnock were struggling at the bottom of the table. The former Dundee boss managed to keep the Ayrshire club in the Premiership and avoided the relegation play-off, while also playing some decent football. And Kiltie insists they still believe in the manager's approach. "He obviously believes in it," the former St Mirren midfielder said. "He sees how we do it in training. If he believes in it and we believe in it then we're hoping it all comes together. Doing it in training is one thing, doing it in a game is another. "I do think we need to be so much better than what we've shown. We have given very cheap goals away and that is hard to come back from in games. It kills the momentum for us. We need to keep believing in ourselves. "It is only the second game of the season and it would be silly to write it off."