WE’LL STICK WITH CSABA
United chief Martin vows to stand by under-fire boss after Betfred flop
DEFIANT Dundee United chief Mike Martin last night backed Csaba Laszlo as they count down the days to the start of the crucial Championship campaign.
The Tannadice chairman moved to offer Laszlo his full support despite the shock exit from the Betfred Cup which has left many supporters wondering whether the Hungarian would survive to lead their push for promotion.
Laszlo, 54, took over from Ray McKinnon in November when United were fighting it out with St Mirren for the title, before a spectacular collapse saw them ultimately finish third before losing in the play-offs to Livingston.
But Martin has reiterated his stance of being right behind Laszlo ahead of the Tangerines’ opening league clash at home to title rivals Dunfermline on Saturday. Martin said: “Absolutely. I said at the end of (last) season that Csaba was going to lead our campaign this year. “We have worked with him over the last 11 weeks putting together his squad and his coaching staff, as well as putting in place the other elements of the infrastructure that he needs to execute his job properly. “We were very disappointed with the results in the cup. “Every competition and every match we go into, we want to win. “Although it does come very early in the season with not much of a pre-season behind you, it is the same for all clubs. “So we were not in a different position so far as that was concerned. I think the way in which things were different here was, however, the complete overhaul of the coaching and the playing staff.
“So we had the added complication of gelling the team basically because of all the new arrivals.”
Martin has watched Laszlo completely change the squad since failing to secure promotion via the play-offs in May. So he concedes such sweeping changes always had the potential to lead to a sticky start.
He said: “There was an awareness (of that) but we hoped it wouldn’t. We were confident going into every game.
“We looked at the starting line-ups and we thought we had a team capable of doing the job and we were disappointed with the outcome.
“But it didn’t wholly surprise us in terms of the stage we were at in terms of rebuilding the squad. I do think some of the criticism of the manager has been unfair.
“It’s very few weeks since we started the rebuilding process – 11 weeks since we played our last game of last season. We set about, the very next day, rebuilding the squad for the coming season.
“Of course you then hit various practical issues with managers, players and officials away on holiday so you can’t make the progress you hoped to.
“But we still set about our task very diligently and in a very structured way. We put together a group that met twice a week throughout that whole period.
“They would come to us with their thoughts and ideas in terms of the squad.
“We discussed them and acted upon them when we thought it was right.
“We managed to bring to the club the vast majority of players we targeted in the window.”