United kids are urged to seize their big chance

DUNDEE United academy chief Andy Goldie is urging his young stars to seize a spot in Micky Mellon’s first team.

United kids Lewis Neilson and Logan Chalmers have featured heavily for boss Mellon so far this season as the Tangerines get equipped to life in the Premiership.

His fledglings have impressed in cutting their teeth in the top flight and former SFA Performance School coach Goldie reckons there is the potential for more hopefuls coming up behind them.

The 35-year-old believes Mellon and sporting director Tony Asghar have given his lads a pathway – now it’s up to them to take their chance.

Goldie said: “Everyone was talking about United needing players for certain positions but great credit to Micky and Tony because the first place they’ve looked is the academy.

“We’ll probably still sign other players, and there’s been a couple brought in already, but he’s looked at the academy first and he’s gone ‘I’m going to give these boys a chance’.

“He’s been so impressed with them from any U/18 games he’s seen or any meetings we’ve had.

“As a result he’s willing to put his faith and trust in those young boys by giving them first-team opportunities. It’s now up to them to take that.

“They’ve got the platform there, they need to go and grab it with two hands and make sure we don’t go and sign somebody else in that position.”

Goldie, academy director at Tannadice for over 18 months, is back working with players at the GA Arena and the kids taking part in the Terrors’ new link-up with Baldragon Academy.

It’s been a long time coming after months of working from home but Goldie feels they are starting to, slowly, get some normality back.

He added: “We were able to come back on July 13 under different conditions but we wanted to do things right.

“We know there are certain clubs and programmes which have rushed back but, being the elite academy in the area, we wanted to lead by example.

“We made sure we’ve got our protocols and procedures in place