Mixu calls for United front amid the trauma
AT the withered end of a season pitched somewhere between steady misery and slapstick farce, nobody would blame a certain type of long-suffering Dundee United fan for planning to be anywhere but Mount Florida this afternoon.
Pottering on the allotment, scanning all 850 movie channels for something not starring Colin Farrell and/or Jude Law, even performing handbag-holding duties beside the fitting rooms in a High Street store.
All may be preferable to another full-on immersion in this chaotic campaign of uncontrolled downward motion, eight months of ineptitude interrupted only by moments of wild rage and the odd tragi-comic cameo. And to think, this is the club of McLean, Narey, Sturrock, Hegarty et al …
Fortunately for Mixu Paatelainen and his players, being a football fan isn’t an optional pastime, something to be picked up and dropped as the mood suits. Not in this country, where supporters take a sort of twisted pride in backing their club through thin and thinner.
Aware that some casual types will not take up the opportunity to travel to Glasgow for a lunchtime kick-off, even if it means missing ‘their’ team play at the national stadium at prices designed to maximise numbers, Paatelainen last night issued a personal plea to those fans who have — so far — stuck by his side.
‘My message is to please, please keep supporting us because it is very important,’ said the Finn. ‘It’s important for the players out there in terms of confidence. They hear that. They feel the atmosphere, they think: “There’s our troops”.
‘And I expect the fans will be there again because they have been magnificent in what has been a horrendous season.
‘It is up to the players to give them something? Absolutely. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Like any game, you want to start well and give fans cause for optimism.
‘I’m not worried about the fans because they have been excellent. Wherever we’ve gone, they’ve been loud. The backing this season in any game has been brilliant.’
Paatelainen’s description of the current campaign as ‘horrendous’ doesn’t feel overstated at all. He might add a few more colourful words in private. Especially if asked to describe the complete disorder that appears to run through the Tannadice club from top to bottom.
Nothing exposed the collective insanity gripping United quite so much as the Gavin Gunning affair, the defender perceived by enraged fans to have thrown in the towel after picking up the ball mid-play against Inverness Caley Thistle and walking off with an injury. Paatelainen later insisted that Gunning would never play for him again.
But hey, why not back Gunning to be first goalscorer today? After the whole ‘Is he sacked? Is he staying?’ saga — a baffling aftermath to one of the most bizarre incidents even in our nutty wee corner of world football — anything could happen.
That includes, incidentally, a United win. If only because it would be impossible to overstate Hibs’ propensity for failing just when triumph is within their grasp.
HIBS head to Hampden on the back of a late collapse against league rivals Falkirk, their concession of two goals in the final three minutes at Easter Road — against 10 men, mind — turning certain victory into a less-than-useful draw.
Asked if he thought this inability to stay focused and professional enough to close out a game may be a weakness that his own team may exploit, Paatelainen rather unconvincingly insisted: ‘I don’t think that’s a weakness.
‘You have to give credit to Falkirk, the way they stayed in the game. It looked like Hibs’ game when they were 2-0 up but Falkirk kept believing and kept attacking and creating chances. I’d like to give Falkirk credit.
‘That happens to every team at some point, you lose a lead. But it’s not a Hibs weakness.
‘They have been here to Hampden this season — and that’s an advantage. They lost the League Cup Final but they know what it’s like here.
‘The players who played against Falkirk are fit for the Premier League, no problem, as are the ones on the bench. Their squad is excellent and they have an excellent management team. It won’t be easy, that’s for sure.’