It is the double-header everyone was looking forward to and now it is time for the much-anticipated second half. Whilst most of the footballing universe were glued to their TVs on Tuesday night for the Champions League, a brave bunch of football fans gathered at Tannadice for the first leg of DUFC v DFC. A grand total of 3620 supporters turned up to witness a fairly assured Dundee United performance and a 2-0 victory for Csaba Laszlo’s men. It could have been more but a win is win and we have now reached the final run of games. If the side can make it another victory tomorrow then that would leave the team in a decent position for the remaining five fixtures. We are still in contention for the playoffs but it would take a very impressive run of victories for us to push Livingston all the way for second spot (although interestingly we play Livi on the last day of the league season).
After tinkering and tampering with the team and formation Laszlo has returned to a 4-2-3-1 with Stewart Murdoch being shifted in to a left back slot to replace Jamie Robson. To be fair to Murdoch he has played pretty well on the left hand side but he cannot be seen as a long-term left-back (or indeed right-back for that matter). The performance at Tannadice on Tuesday was solid enough although it probably should have yielded more goals. It was also yet again glaringly obvious that this United team are a soft touch and need to toughen up defensively. We are still making too many basic errors and inviting pressure when we don’t need to. Dumbarton were incredibly poor so although we played well there was also an element of the opposition maybe making us look good. We have games against St.Mirren and Falkirk up next and they will not give us the time and space Dumbarton did on Tuesday.
For tomorrow there shouldn’t be many changes and you would expect, given no fresh injury worries, that Laszlo may even stick with the same eleven. For me personally I would only make one change with Matty Smith being rested for either Thomas Mikkelsen or Scott Fraser. Despite bursting on to the scene a few weeks ago it has been a poor couple of games for Smith and he has been unable to make the most of his first team place.
My favoured lineup against Dumbarton would be…
GK – Harry Lewis
RB – Anthony Ralston
CB – Mark Durnan
CB – Bilel Mohsni
LB – Stewart Murdoch
CM – Willo Flood
CM – Sam Stanton
RM – Paul McMullan
CAM – Scott Fraser
LM – Billy King
ST – Scott McDonald
Subs – Deniz Mehmet, Jamie Robson, Craig Slater, William Edjenguele, Emil Lyng, Grant Gillespie, Matty Smith.
Key Man – Bilel Mohsni. Let’s get one thing straight, part of me still thinks that at any moment Bilel Mohsni is going to lose the plot and end someone’s career with a UFC style take down for no reason at all. However it had to be said that Mohsni has been absolutely brilliant for United in his few appearances so far. He has been composed on the ball and technically he is far superior to any other defender we have. I find it bizarre even saying this but we really should be considering offering him a longer contract to tie him down for next season at the very least.