Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Tried and tested the way forward for Utd
The early signs of Dundee United’s summer clear-out suggests they’re going for the tried and tested method.
Strong rumours of players like Nicky Clark and Fraser Aird from Dunfermline show they’re looking at signings who know what the Championship is all about and how to see out games at that level.
That’s the way to go about it for me – especially with how difficult the Championship will be next season.
Away trips to places like Dingwall, Inverness, Ayr, Dumfries and Morton won’t be easy by any means so they need a squad that knows what it takes to get results in these places.
That’ll mean a change of tack for manager Csaba Laszlo, too.
The Tangerines have nailed their colours to the mast by backing Csaba ahead of the new campaign.
This is his chance to make the squad his own, make his own choice on signings.
After that we can judge him properly.
Hopefully, with a bit more time to do research on players over the summer, too, he signs a bit better than he did in January.
They didn’t exactly inspire confidence and smacked of just getting some new faces in to ruffle things up.
The nature of the winter window, though, means managers are a bit more hurried in their business.
It’s natural then that summer deals will be more researched and have more work done behind them.
If it’s his squad, too, he can start really playing the way he wants to.
It’s too early right now to be too positive or negative – basically because they hardly have any players on their books.
What that does leave is a blank canvas for the manager to work with and almost completely build his own team for the new campaign.
Throwing that many new players in at the start of pre-season might take a bit of time to gel together but it’s a gamble the club just had to take this close season.
Whether or not they were keeping Csaba the helm, last season’s squad just wasn’t nearly good enough and that was shown as Livi swept them aside in the play-offs.
It’s all on Csaba now to put together a team that has the ability to go and win the Championship.
Nothing else will do.