Sven Sprangler stressed St Johnstone can’t afford to get weighed down worrying about the weekend winners in the bottom six.
Saints took one step back on Saturday after two strides of Premiership survival progress.
Following wins over Motherwell and St Mirren to close the gap at the foot of the table, Simo Valakari’s side never got going at Rugby Park in a 3-1 loss.
Kilmarnock stretched 10 points clear of Saints who also met with miserable post-match news that Ross County romped to a 3-0 success at Fir Park.
Saints are now six points adrift, with Dundee the closest club to take aim at.
Sunday’s visit of Hearts is the first of a trio of pivotal contests in a seven-day stretch.
Don Cowie’s County then travel to Perth for a midweek clash before Saints tackle a Tayside derby at Dens.
Sprangler insists Saints must solely focus on improvement on their Killie showing for those challenges – and not be side-tracked fretting about the movers and shakers above.
The captain said: “The most important thing is to look at ourselves; we cannot influence what the other teams will do.
“We can only concentrate on our own performance and to do everything every week for a win.
“That’s our plan. We have to keep looking forward. It’s important not to let this result stop us. We were on a good run of form.
“Next weekend is a new opportunity and we must do better. I know these lads.
“It starts again, straight away, now; we train and prepare for Hearts. Everyone has to do better – and we will do that.”
Sprangler was restored to a midfield role at Kilmarnock after weeks of filling the central defensive void.
But neither he nor Elliot Watt stood a chance of dictating play from the middle of the park as Derek McInnes’s high-tempo press ruled.
Sprangler admitted: “It was a hard afternoon for us from start to finish. We want to try and play it from the back to the front.
“But they were just waiting for us to do that and waiting for mistakes.
“We analysed it the whole week, we knew it would come at us from Kilmarnock. But we still looked a little bit surprised.
“From the beginning, they dominated us physically. We should have dealt with it better.
“Everyone in the changing room is very disappointed, we wanted to come here and get three points.
“But we didn’t deserve it, to be honest. Every one of us knows that we didn’t play our best game.”
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