Source: Team_Talk
Jefferies: Kyle will only get better
The 27-year-old scored both of the Rugby Park side's goals in Wednesday night's 2-1 win over St Mirren, taking his tally to six in three games, and giving his team a four-point cushion from the bottom of the table with two games of the season remaining.
Manager Jefferies, who saw Kyle score on his debut after his arrival at the end of January, said: "I've chased Kevin for a long time, such as when I was at Hearts, but I could never afford him.
"You can just get a wee break because you keep pestering for somebody - the agent phoned and asked would I still be interested, and I told him what I could afford.
"Kevin wanted to play in Scotland and he's come in and done a terrific job for us; he's the threat we've been needing.
"The fact he's scored our last six goals shows why we brought him in; we haven't been scoring goals and he's banged in six in three important games for us.
"All the boys have had a lift from him coming in because some of our play has been great this year and we just haven't been finishing off.
"But now they know if they put the right balls in there there will be somebody on the deck or in the air who's going to get on the end of it.
"We have him for another year and he'll be starting the season once he gets a pre-season under his belt.
"I still think he has fitness to find because he was out for five or six weeks before I signed him, so it was a bit of a gamble to throw him right in but he's come up with the goods and has got fitter.
"He'll want to stay in this league to show what he can do and that's why he's out there busting a gut like everybody else to stay in the league."
The Ayrshire side moved up two places to eighth after a crucial set of fixtures in the tightly-packed bottom six, and now host Inverness on Saturday while bottom two St Mirren and Falkirk play each other.
Jefferies said: "We're not there yet and we know it will be a tough game, but the St Mirren match was a massive win and it's in our hands.
"I have a better squad now than I've had for years; we've just lacked the fact that Colin Nish and Steven Naismith scored 33 goals between them and we don't have that now.
"It isn't easy to replace them when you're trying to do it for nothing, but we managed to get Kevin in and he's done the business for us."
St Mirren counterpart Gus MacPherson now faces the biggest game of the season at Falkirk on Saturday, on the back of three consecutive bottom-six defeats.
His side are now one point behind John Hughes' men, who leapfrogged them to move off the foot of the table courtesy of their victory at Hamilton.
MacPherson said: "We know that we're going into a game that we have to win, and the players know that the club is the most important thing.
"After being critical of the players in the two home defeats, we reacted really well.
"But performances don't matter at this stage - it's all about getting three points on Saturday.
"We made mistakes against Kilmarnock because we're not defending properly; Kevin Kyle is a presence in the box and at this level the quality of player and the quality of balls into the box means they're capable of taking chances."
