BRUTAL ENDING IS SWIFT AND MERCILESS

IN the end, Jackie McNamara’s departure was as brutal and swift as his team’s second-half collapse was at McDiarmid Park. With one win in the league this term, and just three in their closing 18 fixtures of last season, anxiety levels had been building in the Tannadice boardroom while the manager was subjected to increasingly vitriolic abuse from the United support. When Billy Mckay stroked home a first-half penalty on Saturday — after St Johnstone keeper Alan Mannus was dismissed for climbing over the on-loan Wigan striker — the pressure appeared to be easing. But United’s awful demise after the interval against their diminished hosts, hallmarked by goals from Graham Cummins and substitute Simon Lappin, proved too much for chairman Stephen Thompson, who swiftly summoned McNamara to an upstairs office in the Perth stadium to set the wheels in motion for change. Once again Saints boss Tommy Wright, who famously captured the Scottish Cup with a 2-0 triumph over United at Celtic Park in 2014, had got the better of McNamara — hard on the heels of assuredly eliminating Rangers from the League Cup last week. McNamara had hoped his own team’s cup win over Dunfermline would be the catalyst for a move away from the lower rungs of the Premiership. And when United took the lead in the 24th minute, after Mannus clattered into Mckay while chasing down a wayward Tam Scobbie back header, he must have anticipated

some respite in the offing. But, devoid of confidence and looking worryingly lightweight against a resilient Perth side, their one-man advantage was never apparent, even before the irrepressible Cummins leapt high to loop home Liam Craig’s corner in the 64th minute. With momentum and belief building, Wright’s men refused to settle for a point and — within three minutes of his introduction — Lappin finished off stand-in keeper Zander Clark’s route-one approach with a close-range lob over unprotected keeper Luis Zwick. United skipper Sean Dillon, oblivious at the time to what was going on upstairs, inadvertently flagged up a warning to McNamara’s eventual successor. ‘It doesn’t matter who’s in charge if you’re going to give away goals like we’ve done,’ admitted Dillon. ‘Of course the dressing room is down. We started the game well and we had a break with their keeper going off before going a goal up. ‘St Johnstone deserve credit for the way they’ve come back but we still gave them two goals. ‘There’s only so much you can do. We’ve given away another goal from a set-piece and their second again was a really, really bad goal for us. ‘The disappointing thing is we haven’t learned well enough recently as a squad. It’s so frustrating to see.’ Even as he spoke, the curtain was being brought down on McNamara’s reign as the United board turned their attention to a successor. Saints boss Wright, whose track record against United can’t have gone unnoticed by chairman Thompson, acknowledged the home fans with a victory salute in the centre circle as his forlorn rival was trudging up the tunnel. Match-winner Lappin, who had to be content with starting on the bench, despite scoring at Ibrox, admitted: ‘It was nice to get the winner in a derby. ‘With the 10 men we showed a willingness to keep going rather than settle for a draw. ‘The commitment from the lads was incredible. The effort from everybody again after Tuesday night’s demands at Ibrox was absolutely outstanding. ‘We knew it was going to take the same amount of effort we produced against Rangers. We got that and we deserved the three points.’