Disaster in Tangerine frailties at the back ruthlessly exploited by Staggies

PLAYERRATINGS

IN the run up to the Scottish Cup trip to Ross County, Dundee United gaffer Ray McKinnon expressed the opinion there is no gulf between teams near the top of the Championship and most of those in the Premiership.

The 6-2 drubbing handed out by the Staggies to the Tangerines at a foggy Global Energy Stadium on Saturday would seem to suggest the need for a rethink.

But generally speaking he is probably right. Where there is a significant gap between those in the top two divisions, though, is when it comes to the consequences of defensive errors.

In the second tier there’s a fair chance of getting away with one or two. A league up, odds are errors will be punish in the shape of goals.

And that’s exactly what happened to United in the Highlands.

In terms of overall play, there was no huge difference between the sides but, sporadically, there were errors in the visitors’ defence play.

Four in the first half, in fact, and each one was ruthlessly punished with goals from the home team’s attack.

It meant despite striking twice themselves through Tony Andreu in that period, by half-time, McKinnon’s men had a mountain to climb if they were to save the tie.

Valiantly they tried in the second 45 minutes but, the more they pressed forward, the more you feared what could happen, did.

Twice in the closing stages County broke away and exploited the space left by the opposition pushing more men up by getting further goals.

That meant for a painful day for the 815 Arabs who’d travelled to Dingwall looking for a repeat of last season’s quarter-final success there.

Their only consolation was probably that County goals five and six came at the other end of the park from where they were housed, and much of the detail of them was blanked out by fog.

It had put the tie in doubt and it took referee Kevin Clancy several pre-kickoff checks before deciding it could start.

When it did, United must have wished it hadn’t and, at various points, the away fans were chanting to the effect they couldn’t see.

While visibility was less than ideal, Clancy made the right call and to his credit the United boss refused to use the weather as any type of excuse for this display, a fourth on the bounce without a win.

The last three of those have seen a total of 12 goals conceded and what was for a time not so long ago the meanest rearguard shambolic.

That’s got to be a major concern and, if United are to revive their season, their defensive play must return to the previous high standards and soon.

If there were any small crumbs of comfort from this painful 90 minutes, they lay in the return to scoring form of Tony Andreu and that fit-again Frank van der Struijk got 90 minutes under his belt.

Andreu’s first-half strikes were both well taken and he was lively throughout the action.

And to have a man of Van der Struijk’s experience back, has to be a good thing.

Other than that, this was a day that’s best forgotten. in the country looked