Alex Dyer urges Kilmarnock to keep pushing for top six

Kilmarnock’s Hampden hopes were ended by Aberdeen in midweek but Alex Dyer has told his players they still have six cup finals left to play.

Killie suffered an extra-time collapse as they missed out on the William Hill Scottish Cup quarter-finals with a crushing 4-3 defeat to the Dons.

Now attention turns back to Ladbrokes Premiership duty and Dyer hopes to soothe the pain of their cup exit by picking up points at Parkhead on Sunday.

Under Steve Clark, the Rugby Park outfit registered back-to-back top-six finishes and the Scotland number two hopes to make it a hat-trick this term.

Kilmarnock sit four points behind sixth-placed Hibs with six games left before the top-flight split and Dyer says his side should be fired up as they prepare to take on table-topping Celtic.

He said: “The motivation is the players are going up against the best side in the country and one of the best clubs in the world.

“So we don’t need much more motivation than that. They just need to dust themselves down after Wednesday and go again.

“It’s important we get a result at Parkhead. We want to pick up as many points as we can between now and the cut-off and get back in that top six.

“We’ve got to do whatever it takes. We’ve got some big games coming up, not just the Celtic game. Every game now is going to be our cup final because we want to get into that top six.”