Utd’s hard work will go on says happy Harkes

AFTER their spectacular derby success at the end of last week, Ian Harkes ad m its the Du ndee Un ited playe rs we re just as excited by the perfor mance as t hei r delighted supporters.

The young American, though, insists no one in the Tangerines squad will be getting carried away over the 6-2 hammering of neighbours Dundee, or any of the three wins that preceded it in what has been a perfect start to the league campaign for Robbie Neilson’s team.

He knows the quality shown in games like the derby has a lot to do with the hard graft that’s being done on a daily basis over at United’s St Andrews training base and accepts full well it has to continue.

“It’s great to see glimpses like that where we put in the work in training and it all pays off in the way it did in the derby,” said Harkes.

“We know we have to keep that work going every week so that we see these results and performances more often.

“We are very happy with how we played against Dundee, and I think we have a right to be, but we have to keep our heads the whole way and not lose focus.

“It’s a long season and there are a lot of games still ahead in it.

“We can’t get ahead of ourselves and we just have to take each game as it comes and prepare like we have been so far.”

That United have come out of the blocks so quickly and raced to the top of the second tier with a perfect record so far is, Harkes believes, not by chance.

He sees it as a result of preparation and planning that dates back to the fixtures being announced back in mid-June.

With all four of the August outings i n the Championship being against teams with the potential to be up there among those challenging for promotion, there was an awareness the team would have to be right at it from the very off.

“I think we all saw it was going to be a tough first month and we knew we would have to be at it in every single game.

“We worked hard to prepare and it’s paid off over the first four