Jefferies to reassess squad plans
by Gordon Pope, 17 May 2008
Kilmarnock won their final game of the season against Falkirk and Jim Jefferies says that it left him feeling his side might not need as drastic surgery as first expected.
After the 2-1 win he said: “It’s funny when you’re down there. The football we played at St Mirren or Gretna, you’re thinking we need six or seven players and with performances like last week and today you might need two or three.
“We need to know what areas to strengthen and we’ll do that. We’ll lose one or two; we know that but as long as we replace them.”
Jefferies revealed that he will know this week how his budget will look and what he will have to spend bringing players in, so may have to let some of his stars go.
He said: “A lot depends on the budget, if we bring in new players then if we’re tight with the budget we might need to make it available to bring in somebody.”
Someone he is desperate to have for next season is Man of the Match from Saturday Mehdi Taouil.
Jefferies said: “I’m meeting him tonight (Taouil’s agent), I’ll try and get a few bottles of wine down him but knowing my luck this year he’ll be teetotal.”
Kilmarnock deserved to take the three points and could have won by more if Paul Dalglish had taken any of his many chances and Jefferies was pleased with the performance.
He said: “We had to wait too long to get the second goal, we created some great opportunities and even before Falkirk scored we could’ve been one up with Paul hitting one over the bar.”
“At least we finished on a high winning our last two games. We’re pleased to see some of the players come back (from injury) and do well.
He continued: “We went out and played some decent football, created some great chances and if we had our shooting boots on today or a natural goalscorer we could have won well before we did.”