If your team hasn't scored a goal or won in its last four league games, the last side you want to face at the moment is Dundee United. They are absolutely flying, winning their last six games and scoring a ridiculous number of goals into the bargain. Meanwhile, we can't find the back of the net and have shipped five goals in our last two games. It should be an entertaining game, although I expect United will be rather more entertaining than ourselves!
I feel a bit sorry for United fans having to head to Paisley on Boxing Day. They have Aberdeen and St Johnstone relatively close by, while a trip up to Inverness or down to Edinburgh would surely have been closer than making the trek to Renfrewshire (I've not checked so am probably wrong on some of that). However, perhaps we should be thankful it's not us that's been forced to travel after some of the ridiculous festive journeys to Inverness in the past few years. Overall our festive schedule is pretty sensible over the next 10 days or so and we should applaud the fixture makers for that one. Just don't revert to normal next season!
For some reason we're pretty poor against United at home but rather good against them on their own patch - this season's 4-0 hammering aside. We've not beaten the Arabs in Paisley for more than 12 years, but the defeat at Tannadice in October was our first there since Danny Lennon took charge. Considering the respective form of the two sides an away win looks a stick on, but it's often in situations like these we do something silly and pick up an unexpected result. The pressure is off us tomorrow so there's no reason why we can't spring a shock.
To do that we'll need to score a goal - Conor Newton's strike in the 2-1 win over Ross County the last time we managed to do that in the league. The reason for the drought is a mystery as, until last week's defeat to Motherwell, we'd had the same team that rattled in goals against the likes of Partick Thistle and St Johnstone. The introduction of Gary Harkins last week was perhaps a bid to change things around but it didn't work, so I'd expect to see John McGinn back in. We don't really have much else we can change to get some goals as Gary Teale is injured and the likes of Thomas Reilly and Jake Caprice are unlikely to feature.
We could see some changes at the back in a bid to tighten things up though. Marc McAusland was benched last week after a bad display at Aberdeen but he could be brought back into the team. It seems Sean Kelly wasn't at his best at Fir Park so Danny Grainger might start, while David van Zanten could be brought in on the other side of midfield. That's about your lot though - let's just hope we're not architects of our own downfall and make United's talented band of kids work for their goals.
I'll be honest, I wasn't particularly convinced about Jackie McNamara's summer transfer business. It didn't look particularly exciting, with players coming in from the lower leagues or random foreigners. However, mixing them with his experienced players and a fantastic crop of youngsters has paid huge dividends, with some great play producing high scoring games. They're also keeping things relatively tight at the back, which is why they're second in the league. Not bad for a team I reckoned would struggle to make the top six and United have deservedly been getting plenty of praise when the media take a break from sucking up to Aberdeen.
The one signing I reckoned McNamara had got right during the summer has turned out to be one of their poorer players. It looked like a good move bringing David Goodwillie back on loan, but arguably the deal hasn't paid off and United have struggled to accommodate the forward. He's still scored a few goals and is a handy player, but so far he hasn't demonstrated the sort of form that earned him his move to Blackburn. Nadir Çiftçi, meanwhile, has looked rather impressive when he's not acting like a nutter and has scored seven goals, which earned him a new deal until 2016. It should pay off for United as if he keeps playing the way he is they'll be able to cash in. It's unlikely they'll do that with Brian Graham, although he has started showing a bit of form of late after his summer move from Raith Rovers.
One of United's other summer signings made an even bigger jump up the leagues and has done rather better. How long they can keep a hold of Andrew Robertson remains to be seen although he, like Çiftçi, has earned himself a new deal. The leftback has been terrific and was deservedly handed an under-21 call-up last month. If he keeps going it won't be long until he's in the full squad. An injury to Keith Watson allowed Mark Wilson a shot at rightback after returning to the club in the summer, with Radoslaw Cierzniak continuing to do well in goals. The centre of the defence will feature at least one of Gavin Gunning, Sean Dillon and Calum Butcher - the later a bit aggressive following his summer arrival in Scottish football.
McNamara raided old club Partick Thistle during the summer to bring in Chris Erskine and Paul Paton. The pair didn't get off to the best of starts but since then the midfielders have looked decent when they've been alongside John Rankin. Gary Mackay-Steven has been fit for much of the campaign, which is a bit of a rarity, but after impressing in recent years he seems to have been overshadowed by some youngsters who we'll come on to in a moment. Stuart Armstrong enjoys getting forward and his goalscoring exploits are part of the reason for him being handed a new contract,, while Ryan Dow is still a youngster and could be pretty handy in the future.
But a youngster who is pretty handy now is Ryan Gauld. I knew a bit about him going into the season as I had him in the last version of Football Manager, but I didn't realise he was already this good. He has been terrifying defences all season, likes to score and cuts backlines open at will. If he keeps his head screwed on he could go a long, long way in the game with interest already building. The good news for United fans is it looks as if he will continue his development at Tannadice as he signed a new contract recently, then another even more recently! John Souttar has also extended his stay after breaking into the team last season. He looks totally unfazed in defence and was confident enough to turn down a move to Sunderland - probably the right decision considering how they're faring at present!
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