Brendan Rodgers has suffered three defeats at Rugby Park during his two spells as Celtic manager.
Steve Clarke twice defeated the former Liverpool manager in Ayrshire while Kilmarnock boss. Derek McInnes finally got one over his dugout rival today as Marley Watkins scored the only goal of the last-16 tie.
Killie were resolute, determined, and full of energy. As much as they defended well, they also carried a threat at the top end of the pitch.
And while Rodgers was keen to praise Killie for their efforts in beating his side, the Irishman couldn't resist mentioning the artificial surface at Rugby Park.
Speaking to Viaplay after the match, Rodgers was asked what makes Killie's ground such a tough venue.
Without hesitation, he said: "The pitch. The pitch. There’s nothing else. You look to move the ball quickly and obviously when you are playing against an opponent who are strong, quick, and can run, you need the ball to be able to move fast and clearly it wasn’t for us today.
"Still, I don’t want to make any excuses. It’s been a tough place to come. As I said, today we didn’t do enough."
The Hoops boss insists his team will take around a day to digest the result before moving on to their next challenge, which is St Johnstone at home next week.
Rodgers added: "Well it’s a disappointment, there’s no doubt. I don’t think we did enough to win the game. We upped the level when we went behind but we didn’t show enough quality when we had the ball.
"The goal, we switch off from the throw-in, we don’t win our duels and they go through and score. It was a disappointing result for us.
"But give credit to Kilmarnock. They worked very hard, put the tackles in, put the blocks in, and like I say, they win the game.
"I always think when you lose any game you’ve got to give it 24 hours to grieve. We’ll go away, we’ll assess it. The key thing is about learning. This is a team that’s got a lot of new players in and people will look at it and say it’s the same squad, it’s not. It’s a different squad of players.
"But still, we should have more quality than what we showed today. We need to go away, review it, analyse it and look to our next game."
