Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Ray looking for first-leg victory
DUNDEE United’s excellent home form means even a draw at Morton in tonight’s Premiership play-off quarter-final first leg would surely put t hem within touching distance of winning the tie.
But gaffer Ray McKinnon wants to be heading back from the Tail O’ The Bank holding an advantage.
The Tangerines have lost just once all season at Tannadice and McKinnon admits that has given him confidence going into this and t he other possible two-legged ties that lie ahead.
He, though, believes his team can do the business home and away and will approach this game accordingly.
“We’ll try to win the game, definitely. We will try to play in a certain manner in this one and we’ll do the same at Tannadice and go out to win,” he said.
“I do have to be honest and say our home form gives me encouragement. It has been great and the fans have been brilliant.
“At the start of the season we got the message over that sometimes it was going to be difficult to break teams down because of the way they’d play.
“To be fair, the fans have responded t o t hat and we’ve only lost one game at home all season and that was when we were down to 10 men against Hibs for about an hour.
“If we put on a strong performance down there you would like to think we’d have a really good chance of going through back at Tannadice on Friday but, for me, a strong performance is winning.”
Ray does admit the action being played over 180 minutes, means it won’t be like a normal l eague outing. He’s stressed to his players the need to remain calm and stick to the game plan.
“You have to be aware it’s two legs and not to panic if anything goes wrong,