Continued hard yards can

Take Tangerines all the way

the same headlines as Shankland’s goals, his influence in the middle of the park is proving almost as important as the striker’s up top.

Importantly, it’s not just the quality of those players that’s been key but they way they’ve fitted into the manager’s plan for his team.

In recent times some good players have arrived at Tannadice but too often it’s been hard to see where they fitted in the line-up.

By contrast, Neilson has shown himself to be adept at signing square pegs for square holes and, accordingly, now has the most fluent side in the second tier.

Possibly an even bigger strength right now, though, is his ability to stay calm and collected whatever way results have gone.

That’s allowed him to use the blips so far – the Betfred Cup loss to East Fife and Saturday’s Challenge Cup defeat against Arbroath – to his advantage.

In the days following each success he’s stressed, as good as things look, this team remains a work in progress and, after those reversals, he’s quietly said “I told you so”.

It shows, however carried away some of us may be getting, his feet remain firmly on the ground.

And, along with his coaching, he’s making sure the same goes for all his players.

Even this early in the campaign, the number of times Neilson and assistant bosses Gordon Forrest and Lee McCulloch have said “nothing’s been achieved yet” has made them sound like broken records.

However, it’s keeping the players on their toes and that can only be bad news for the rest of the Championship.

The loss to Arbroath was a reminder United are a work in progress.