Perhaps the only moment that brought a smile to Kilmarnock faces during their insipid home defeat to Dundee was the sight of referee Craig Thomson showing a red card to his assistant after he had vomited during the first half.

They certainly didn’t have too much else to cheer them on an afternoon when Lee McCulloch’s players were miles off the pace and deservedly went down by a single Marcus Haber goal.

They might have snatched a point late on as Scott Bain denied both Greg Kiltie and Kris Boyd, with the latter save particularly eye-catching, but it would have been largely undeserved on a day when they didn’t get out of the blocks.

In fact, striker Boyd even advanced a theory as to why far-side linesman Andrew McWilliam was feeling a tad queasy.

“He was probably watching our performance,” Boyd said.

“It wasn’t the best of games for us. Because of where we’ve been over the last few weeks when a performance like that comes along it’s disappointing but we never got going right from the get-go.

“There’s a reason why we’ve not won two games in a row for 14 or 15 months.

“Something needs to change about the place, whatever it may be. Whatever league you’re in, struggling or doing well, you’ll always put a run of results together.

“Yes, we can point to the fact we’ve been undefeated but there’s been a lot of draws in there.

“The big thing for this club is why can we not perform in front of our own fans, who pay good money every week?

“Then when the crowd starts dwindling away we’ve got to ask ourselves the question of why, because to put on performances like that, let’s be brutally honest, who is going to pay 20 quid to watch that?”