MCNULTY READY TOHITTHEMARC
MARC McNULTY is finally set to be unleashed against Aberdeen tomorrow as Micky Mellon looks to reboot Dundee United’s season with a derby victory.
The Tannadice boss admits his side are still finding their feet in the top flight after stepping up as Championship winners.
But Arabs fans hope deadline- day signing Sparky – who has been kept in cold storage to ensure he is ready to explode out the blocks when called upon – can be the man to ignite their campaign.
Mellon will make a final call on the Scotland striker at training today after admitting he is close to hitting game mode.
United are desperate to bounce back from the 2-1 defeat to Livingston prior to the break – as well as the horror Betfred Cup defeat at home to Peterhead seven days ago.
Mellon said: “We want to bring Marc in, get him as fit as we can so he can play games. We have to get enough work into him to minimise the risk of injury.
“So it has been a balancing act on that.
“The cup games were probablybly too early becauseuse we would have run the risk of injury. He’s an explosive playeryer but he’s not hadad the intensity in hisis legs to play games yet. et.
“He has pushed hed on in the last st few days so the he hope is when n we come in on Friday we’ll see where he is and hopefully he can be involved in some way against Aberdeen.”
Keeper Benji Siegrist is also in contention to return having missed the last four games through injury while McNulty’s fellow signing Jeando Fuchs remains in i solation after the midfielder arrived 24 hours before deadline.
Mellon hopes the new faces can help his squad rai se their game consi st ent ly to a Premiership level with United sitting seventh with 11 points from their opening 10 games.
That’s seven behind the Dons who have played two games fewer. Mellon said: “I’m sitting here with a group that’s new to the level. “Every job is different. Mine
i s to take a group of Championship players and get them up to speed, playing at a higher level.
“There isn’t a lot of Premiership experience in that group, which is exciting because nobody could tell me where the glass ceiling in terms of what they could achieve is going to be.
“As we go along, we’ll get our answers to the questions we had at the start of the season.
“We’ll have to answer them, either by trying to push the boys that we’ve got to get bett e r performances and get better performances out of them and keep raising the sstandards, or add from ooutside, if the opportunity ccomes to do that.
“That’s the job at Dundee UUnited, it’s not comparable to anywhere else.
“We’re just about to ccomplete the first round of 111 games, so we’ve certainly lelearnt more.
“We see good imimprovements at times but wwe still have to work hard oon the consistency.”