Managers post Dundee United

24/03/18: link to audio of both managers post match comments.

Allan Johnston told the awaiting media:-

“I thought in the first half we probably created the best chances. If we had taken them then obviously we would have been on the front foot. We played well in the first half and our keeper had two great saves from free kicks but that was all Dundee United really created in the first half.

“Second half we came out and scored a wonderful goal, it was a really good counterattack. Ryan Williamson more or less ran the full length of the pitch and puts a great ball into the box and Nicky (Clark) does what good strikers do and gets the goal. It looked at that point that Dundee United had gone and we looked as though it was going to be how many?

“We shot ourselves in the foot with a really poor goal to lose from our point of view. Dundee United got a bit of momentum at that point and I thought that for maybe ten or fifteen minutes they were the better team. They created a couple of chances before we got a foothold in the game again when we brought on Nat Wedderburn. We were unlucky not to win the game in the end.”

The United equaliser was a bit of a freak and unexplainable, the manager continued:-

“99 times out of a hundred when you clear the ball out of the park from there, it goes out for a throw in. It just happened that Scott McDonald read it, put his foot in there and they got that wee bit of luck that they were needing at that point.”

AJ claimed that his side could still take confidence out of the game.

“You don’t come to Tannadice very often, play like that and from my point of view we were the better team. It is a difficult place to come and it shows you how far the boys have come.

“There were some really good performances, James Vincent bossed the game in the middle of the park. He was everywhere at times but individually and collectively there were a lot of good performances, we just have to make sure that we turn that into wins for the remaining six games that we have left.

“Our target from the start of the season has been to be in the top four and as a club we want to keep progressing, we finished fifth last year, so that has to be the target. We are more than capable of doing that.

“We know what we have to achieve over the next six games. There are a lot of hard games and you can see how tight this league is. You can see the confidence that the boys are playing with just now and the run of form they are in. We just need to make sure that we take that into every game between now and the end of the season.”

The manager praised the travelling support of more than 600 that travelled to Tannadice:-

“We have got a big support, we have a couple of home games coming up as well and it is really important that they get behind ipus again. I thought that they were magnificent again today. You could see that they really enjoyed the way the boys played and probably deserved to win the game.”

Nat Wedderburn was introduced to replace James Craigen with 13 minutes remaining.

“We wanted him to go into the middle of the park. They were getting a little bit of joy in the middle of the park and outnumbering us a little bit in there. We put Nat in there just to shore things up alongside James Vincent.I thought that we got back in the game again.”

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