Kris Boyd was on target for Kilmarnock in Saturday's win over St Johnstone

Kilmarnock manager Steve Clarke has criticised "amateur" scheduling as the Premiership splits in two.

The Rugby Park side go into the final five matches of the season in third place.

And Clarke thinks it odd to stage the league climax over six spring weeks, having played seven times during December.

"It's one of the vagaries of the Scottish amateur league, sorry the Scottish football league", he said.

"We've got two weeks off for an international break, pack three games into a week and then have another two-week break before we play another league game.

"We've got five allocated Saturdays between now and the end of the season. So when we get really good weather we spread the games out but in the winter we pack them all together. It's really clever."

Saturday's 2-0 win over St Johnstone keeps Kilmarnock in front of Aberdeen on goal difference.

Just one point shy of last season's record top-flight tally, the Ayrshire club are on course for European qualification for the first time in 18 years.

However, Clarke said: "We don't talk about it in the dressing room. We just keep chasing the next win. Even when we went through the bad patch and everyone was knocking us and saying we couldn't win any more, we believed in what we were doing and just kept plugging away.

"I haven't thought about it much because we haven't got European football and it was never the aim. The aim this season was to finish in the top six.

"It would probably mean a slightly earlier start to pre-season and probably a financial loss."