We are beginning to look like a team. The work rate over the last two or three games has been immense, and this is the first time for as long as I can remember that we, as fans, have been happy with the teams’ output for three games consecutively. I’d dearly like to see that attitude/work rate and application shown this evening against
We did lose another early goal against The Bairns, and that is a trait I hoped we had overcome – clearly it still needs a little work as we lose far too many goals in the first ten minutes after kick-off, in either half. Of the games thus far this season, we’ve lost goals on 48 mins (Aberdeen 1-1), 6 mins (Hearts 0-3), 6 mins (Motherwell 5-4), 2 mins (ICT 0-2), 3 mins (Falkirk 3-1). Clearly it’s taking us time to settle into a game, or half, and I hope Chisholm is doing something to address this serious issue. Are we calm enough we come onto the pitch? Something is amiss. Perhaps the best form of defence in these early stages is to attack? Get a couple of early goals ourselves, put the other team on the back foot, instead of letting them come at us in any way they please? Or just be tougher? Who knows – it’s difficult to put a finger on exactly what the solution is, but Chisholm needs to address this problem all the same – and of course I’m sure he will.
Our only injury just now is Lee Mair who’s still out for the foreseeable future. All the other players are eligible for selection.
The biggest mystery is Lee Miller’s drop in form, and of course we’d all like to see him back firing on all cylinders and knocking the goals in as soon as possible. Time for a positive attitude from him.
Colin Samuel’s pace and willingness to run at defenders with the ball again caused problems on Saturday, and it’s good now to have options in the forward line-up. Jimmy MacIntyre again worked hard, and we could all take a wee lesson there. I’ve always admired Jim, but at the same time, he hasn’t yet scored this season.
Anyway, the whole team are grafting well, and Dave McCracken and Mark Kerr have both been MoM’s recently, and they need to keep this level of focus and effort up if United are to climb the league. A European place is still achievable for this season, but we are outsiders at the moment. The players will have to work extremely hard to get into that top six and stand any chance of getting themselves into a position where they can nick a Euro spot. A long shot, but hard graft will get us there, nothing else (goals aside of course – stating the obvious).
So again I’ll finish an article with ‘work work work’, and let’s see if we can turn our recent positive efforts into three very valuable points this evening at Pittodrie.