What's going wrong for Kilmarnock and Kettlewell?

Kilmarnock were third in the Scottish Premiership at the start of October. Seven games into the league season, things were looking positive.

Fast-forward seven weeks and Stuart Kettlewell's side were booed off at Rugby Park as they fell to their sixth successive league defeat.

It is the poorest start the Ayrshire club have had to a domestic league campaign since February 2021, when they lost eight games in a row.

In fact, it is the longest ongoing losing streak of any team in the top flight this term.

Their last victory was at home against St Mirren at the beginning of October, seven days after beating Dundee United at Tannadice.

But since then they've suffered a 3-0 defeat by leaders Hearts, a 3-1 loss at Rangers, a 1-0 defeat at home by Aberdeen, and a 3-1 humbling at Falkirk before a 4-0 hammering at Celtic.

Add this meek loss and things are not looking good for a side who are 10th, just two points off the bottom of the division. But what has gone wrong?

While Kettlewell continues to insist Kilmarnock are not using their injury woes as an excuse, it is fair to say they've had a pretty torrid time of it recently.

"There's no avoiding facts," he said of the injuries before the game. "My job is to get it right with the players available. We're looking for a formula that gets us back putting points on the board."

But it is fair to say that the absence of several players is not making things easy for the struggling manager.

There were injury concerns over captain Brad Lyons, although the midfielder proved fit enough to play the second half on Saturday. But Jamie Brandon (ankle/groin), Djenairo Daniels (knee) and Matty Kennedy (hip) are all currently out of action.

Tobi Oluwayemi started in goal against Motherwell. He joined Kilmarnock from Celtic on an emergency seven-day loan last month, but has ended up remaining at Rugby Park after Max Stryjek was sidelined longer-term.

Stryjek joined in the summer from Jagiellonia Bialystok and played seven games before being sidelined. In those games, he conceded eight goals with a save percentage of over 73%.

Eddie Beach and Oluwayemi have played three games each since then and have conceded a total of 17 goals - Beach 10 and seven for Oluwayemi. Beach's save percentage was 41.2% compared to Oluwayemi's 53.3%.

"The two goals in the first half were avoidable," Kettlewell said after the defeat by Motherwell. "This is something we continue to do to ourselves - it's self-inflicted."

Kettlewell has not shied away from the fact that his side are conceding poor goals but that cannot all be down to a change in goalkeeper.

Stamatelopoulos' penalty was the fifth spot-kick Kilmarnock have conceded this term - no other top-flight team has conceded more.

Not only that, but they have also lost five goals to opposition substitutes, a number only St Mirren (six) and Livingston (six) have beaten.

What's more, Kilmarnock have conceded 12 first-half goals in 13 games, the worst of any team in the division.

"We're conceding really cheap, silly, naive goals," Kettlewell said. "It starts to become psychological.

"The bottom line is for whatever reason we've been spooked and started conceding goals in a fashion that wasn't there for long enough.

"We are trying to find ways to galvanise players, to pick them up, so that that mentality is stronger. That seems to be the defining factor at the moment."