With the first quarter of this season's games played, Hearts find themselves exactly where they were at the start: 15 points adrift. The 2-0 loss away to Kilmarnock means manager Gary Locke and his team still have a substantial hurdle to overcome to avoid relegation. Hearts started the season with minus 15 points after going into administration but by the start of October had cut the deficit to just nine points. However, a brace from Kris Boyd secured the points for the Rugby Park side which meant Hearts have not won in the Scottish Premiership for seven games.Locke said: "We are back to square one and that's the bottom line. That's the first set of games gone and we need to do better in terms of defending because the two goals we gave away today were so cheap it wasn't true. They were two long balls which were quite simple to defend but we didn't do it well enough. You can't give a player like Kris Boyd those types of chances because he will put them away. If we are going to give ourselves any chance in games we have to stop leaking goals like that. We can use the fact we are such a young team as an excuse but we can't keep making the same mistakes and it's important we learn from it."Killie counterpart Allan Johnston was full of praise for Boyd following his double secured a second successive win. Johnston said: "I thought Boydy was exceptional. When he plays like that he is unplayable. It wasn't just his goals, it was his work-rate as well. In the last five minutes, you saw him running back to win the ball back for the team. Scoring goals is the hardest thing to do and he does it consistently. I don't think there are many people who can do it as well as he can."
Source: ScottishFitba
Source: FOOTYMAD
