Jim Jefferies believes his players can finish their campaign in style and set themselves up for another crack at the SPL top six next season.Finishing fifth in each of the past two seasons, and reaching last term's CIS Insurance Cup final, ensured expectations were high in August.

But Kilmarnock find themselves 11th in the SPL this time around, with only league whipping boys Gretna worse off than Jefferies' men.

The Ayrshire side have had a reality check, but Jefferies is confident they are better than results indicate, and with the club's injury list now almost cleared up, he is looking for Killie to build on Sunday's 3-1 win against Aberdeen.

Gretna will be Wednesday's opponents at Fir Park, providing the pitch passes a morning inspection, and Jefferies is looking up the league table rather than down.

St Mirren are a point above Kilmarnock, and Jefferies said: "We should be looking at them and above them.

"If they slip up, we've got to keep winning games. We've got the ability, and we've certainly got the spirit and determination, and we didn't look like a team who were second bottom of the league on Sunday.

"If we can keep it going for the rest of the season we can catch not just one team but maybe two or three above us."

Jefferies has had to sell strikers Steven Naismith and Colin Nish this season, and has seen little in the way of funds to suitably replace the pair, who have gone on to achieve success at Rangers and Hibernian.

But the Killie boss believes the clouds are lifting over the club and sees only a positive outlook for the remaining 11 games of Killie's campaign.

The SPL is now into its third and final stage of fixtures before the league splits after 33 games, and Jefferies said: "Remember, at the start of this section of games we played all top-four sides.

"We've now got a run of games where we feel we're well capable of picking up enough points to finish the season well.

"If we don't make the top six we'll regroup and go again but the most important thing is to finish well and give ourselves a bit of a platform to go and build on next season.

"We've done magnificently the past few seasons but we've lost players and had to go and find more.

"We've had a season which has not gone our way but that's no cause to say there's a crisis or there's panic.

"We'll get ourselves out of it because we've got the players to come back fresh and ready to go."

Ahead of Wednesday's game, Jefferies has a doubt over goalkeeper Alan Combe, who has a bruised and swollen foot, but he has hinted at naming an otherwise unchanged line-up.

Simon Ford was surprisingly omitted from the squad to face Aberdeen, with David Lilley coming in as his replacement in central defence.

Jefferies said: "I left him out because Lee Miller had come in for Aberdeen and he's always a threat in the air. Lilley's very aggressive in the air compared to Simon, who likes to read things.

"I just felt it was the right thing to do. I explained that to Simon and he took it without problems.

"They're all in contention to face Gretna. I'll have to look at their side and the state of the pitch.

"It'll be very difficult to change things after what was probably our best performance of the season."

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