Kilmarnock vs St Johnstone Predictions

An in-form Kilmarnock side will host bottom half St Johnstone this weekend at Rugby Park as the hosts continue to chase the European places in the Scottish Premiership. Can the Saints cause an upset?

Kilmarnock continued their much-needed good run of games in the Scottish Premiership during the week as they were able to come away with a point after drawing 0-0 with Hibs at Easter Road. Steve Clarke’s side remain in 3^rd place and on 55 points, but thanks to Aberdeen’s latest win they are now level on points with Killie.

Kilmarnock are undefeated in their last 5 games, but the club has managed 3 draws and 2 wins. Two of those draws ended goalless, including their game on Wednesday night. The game at Easter Road was a weird one, as neither side was particularly interested in scoring goals- something they had both been doing for fun in recent weeks.

Killie also drew with Motherwell and Rangers at Ibrox, as well as narrowly beating in the final minutes of that game at St Mirren Park and a 5-0 thrashing of Hamilton just last weekend- which was the result that Clarke’s side needed.

Despite their most recent win and their best efforts, St Johnstone just weren’t able to finish in the top half of the Scottish Premiership going into the latter half of the season.

Tommy Wright’s side could have put up more of a fight and applied more pressure to Hibs and Motherwell, who were both in front of the Perth side before, but the Northern Irishman’s side have had a terrible year so far, although their last few games have seen some improvement. Moreover, the Saints have picked up points in 4 of their 12 league games this year, two of which were in the past couple of weeks.

St Johnstone were able to easily defeat a weakened and bottom placed Dundee side 2-0 thanks to goals from Callum Hendry in the 16^th minute and Matthew Kennedy with half an hour to go, and it was the club’s 2^nd win in 3 games after their narrow 1-0 victory over St Mirren at the end of March, with a loss to Motherwell wedged in between.

St Johnstone now have nothing to play for the remainder of the season, with the exception of finishing as high as they possibly can in the league, something that, for now, they’re managing to do. Kilmarnock, on the other hand, are far from ending their season, as the Ayrshire club are in contention of finishing 3^rd, so they’ll need to bring their A-game, which is why we’re going to back the hosts to all 3 points, with a final score of 2-1 for Steve Clarke’s side.