It would be an understatement to say we need to make a huge improvement after last week's performance. We were awful against Celtic, especially at the back, and a repeat of that display could well lead to a similar result. We have to be far tighter at the back - and we have to play for the whole game. Too often this season we have only played in spells and I can't really think of a time when we've been switched on for the whole 90 minutes. We were lucky Ross County weren't beyond reach by the break and last week Celtic certainly were. Let's come flying out the traps for once.
Dundee United aren't on a particularly good run at the moment - in fact they're second bottom and haven't managed to win since their second game of the season. A trip to Paisley is probably something they are looking forward to as we aren't exactly the best at dealing with teams when they are on a winless streak. However, we have a decent record against Dundee United in the last few years as gaffer Danny Lennon has yet to lose a game to them. Annoyingly, they seem to like scoring late goals against us - another reason for us to be switched on for the whole game rather than when we feel like it.
Lots of things were missing last week - not just the defence. The desire, passion and commitment were all lacking, things that need to be there more than ever when you are playing a team that is clearly miles better than you on paper. We need to show these qualities again tomorrow. If we go at Dundee United, get in their faces and perhaps get an early goal then we should be able take all three points - although after our recent defensive displays a goalless draw wouldn't be a complete disaster.
About the only Saints player to come out of last week's disaster with any credit was Steven Thompson. The big striker didn't give up and had a few chances thanks to the work of strike partner Lewis Guy but just couldn't take them. He wasn't fantastic by any means but he kept plugging away. Tannadice is where he started his career and he'll be keen to score tomorrow, especially after bagging a couple of goals against the Arabs last season. Hopefully this time the partnership with Guy clicks a bit more as the pair seemed to be on slightly different frequencies last week.
Thompson isn't the only former United man in our squad as we also have Craig Samson and Lee Mair. They, along with the rest of the defence, will need to make huge improvements after that horror show, Samson being culpable for the second after effectively dropping the ball at Efe Ambrose's feet. There will surely be changes after last week and it wouldn't be a surprise to see David Barron benched again and someone like Gary Teale or Dougie Imrie, who United wanted before he signed for us, come into the side. Sadly, we are rather limited in our defensive options so there won't be whole scale changes. On the plus side, Jim Goodwin managed not to get booked last week and is available to continue in midfield alongside Kenny McLean, but Darren McGregor, Paul McGowan and Grant Adam will all be absent once more.
Peter Houston is currently coming in for a bit of stick from Dundee United fans. Part of it is for his continuing work with the Scotland national side, which it could be argued detracts from his focus on goings on at Tannadice. However, part of it is simply because things aren't going very well. I think this is a bit unfair as every season he is having to cope with key players leaving for nothing and his budget being cut. To continually get them into the top six is fairly impressive and he should be cut a bit of slack. Mind you, moaning about not being offered a new contract then being hammered by Inverness Caley Thistle a few days later was slightly amusing!
After last week our defence would probably have quite liked to be up against a team with poor strikers. No such luck. Jon Daly and Johnny Russell are a fairly potent partnership who have been attracting interest from clubs down south in the last few months. Admittedly Daly was wanted by Wigan, who seem to want to sign any decent SPL player despite the failure of the Conor Sammon experiment. The pair are a superb strikeforce who will fire in plenty of goals this season and should cause our back line no end of problems. United do also still have winger Gary Mackay-Steven but he's likely to be missing as he hasn't quite recovered from injury - probably the best news our defence have heard all week.
The worst news they've had all week came today when Dundee United signed Rudi Skacel - the same Rudi Skacel who made our lives a misery when he played for Hearts in the last few years. He had been training with the Jambos and had looked set to sign, but as they've been banned from signing folk for not paying wages on time (again) he has opted to join United until the end of the year. Brilliant. He scored just about every time we played the Jambos in the last few years and bagged two hat-tricks. He may not be match fit but if he's involved tomorrow he will almost certainly score.
Not for the first time, Houston had to do some pretty major reconstruction on his squad over the summer. The likes of Paul Dixon and Dusan Pernis decided to do one but it wasn't all bad news as Garry Kenneth also decided to go down south. Radoslaw Cierzniak was the man chosen to replace Pernis in goals while Brian McLean came in to strengthen the defence along with Gregory Vignal, who I seem to remember playing for Rangers years ago. He has yet to play for the first team so Barry Douglas has been getting a run there, although he has also been struggling with injury recently.
Perhaps the most impressive captures were for the midfield. Michael Gardyne was tied up on a pre-contract long before Ross County had secured last season's first division and seems more than capable of doing a job at this level. The same goes for Mark Millar, who has made the step up from Falkirk. They join a midfield that contains John Rankin, a seemingly bizarre signing last summer that proved to be a master stroke as he showed he was far better than then Hibs boss Colin Calderwood had thought. Willo Flood is also still kicking about in the middle of the park, although seems to get mixed reviews from Arab fans. Despite the large scale turnover of players in recent years there are other familiar faces, including defender Sean Dillon and youngsters Stuart Armstrong and Keith Watson, who have established themselves in the side in the last few seasons.
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