Killie will be up for the cup - Jefferies

The Ayrshire side managed to hold Hearts to a draw last week to set up Wednesday night's fourth round replay and expectations were high when the two sides met in the SPL.

Instead, Kilmarnock slumped to a 3-0 defeat in a game which Hearts dominated from start to finish.

Saulius Mikoliunas grabbed his first goal for the club and an own goal from James Fowler and a superb strike from Lee Miller secured the win for Hearts.

Jefferies admits he is furious with his players for the lacklustre display but he insists it will be a much-improved team who take on the Jambos for the third game on the trot.

He said: "The performance wasn't good enough. We came here last week and competed but we didn't do that this time.

"The first goal we gave away was just a joke. We weren't alert enough to stop the free kick and when it was played through the two central defenders were sleeping.

"From then on we never got into our stride, we were second best and didn't win the 50-50s.

"The only good thing is that it will be a different Kilmarnock on Wednesday - I can promise Hearts that."

Jefferies was faced with a further headache ahead of the cup game after it emerged that Liam Fontaine is now rated doubtful.

The on-loan Fulham defender suffered a facial injury and was replaced by Freddie Dindeleux early in the game.

He said: "Liam had double vision and took a bad knock to his nose and his eye was virtually closed.

"He might be doubtful for Wednesday now.

"Freddie is just back from three weeks out injured and it's never easy to come into a game like that when your team-mates are not showing enough desire."

Taken from eveningtimes.co.uk