Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
McKinnon — We can only blame ourselves
BELEAGUERED Dundee United only have themselves to blame according to manager Ray McKinnon after watching his side “gifting” Raith Rovers victory.
Goals from simple set-pieces either side of half-time from Craig Barr and Ryan Hardie at Stark’s Park saw the Tangerines lose their fourth Championship match in five.
A late Simon Murray strike wasn’t enough to get anything from the game and McKinnon says United are their own worst enemies at the moment.
“We’ve had two difficult defeats in a week, self-inflicted both of them, there’s no doubt about that,” he said.
“The first goal from a set-piece and poor marking, the second goal was an individual error and these things are costing us right at the moment.
“It’s a tough run we’re on right now and we need to come through this, there’s no doubt.
“It’s frustrating because we lost goals from two set-pieces on Wednesday night at St Mirren.
“You set the team up properly and it’s about going and winning that ball and right at this minute we’re not, somebody else is winning it and they’re scoring.
“That’s very frustrating and obviously the second goal, I’m not going to point fingers, it’s an individual error and it’s gifted Raith Rovers a victory.
“We’ve got ourselves to blame but it’s only ourselves that can get us out of this.”
And Ray says there’s little he can take from the performance i n Kirkcaldy as his team fell four points behind Falkirk and Morton who are tied for second place.
“I’m not taking any positives from that because we should have had the ball down and passed it more.
“We did it in some parts of the game and it was effective but, by giving Raith the two goals, certainly the first one, it gives them something to really fight for.”
For Raith, the 2-1 victory was only their second in five months and came after some harsh public criticism from manager John Hughes.
He said: “It was a massive improvement from last week, that’s for sure. And it had to be, I think we owed it to each other to be muchimproved from last week. A few harsh words were said but they took it on board.
“I thought they worked their tails off — I’ve seen better football but if you look at the chances we had, we should have scored another two or three goals.”