Jags clash gets Mellon’s juices flowing

CAPABLE of losing at home to a League One side yet still good enough to defeat the eventual winners on the road on penalties. If nothing else, Micky Mellon’s first crack at a cup competition with Dundee United proved to be an education in terms of the capabilities and limitations of his developing side. The Tannadice boss reflects on that embarrassing home defeat to Peterhead in October and a shoot-out victory at St Johnstone the following month as staging posts on a journey. There is neither regret at not taking Saints’ road to glory or angst at what was by a distance the worst result of the season. It’s the lessons subsequently learned that allow him to welcome Partick Thistle to Tannadice tomorrow believing his side are now in a much better place. ‘Of course it’s easy to look at it like that,’ he said of Saints’ historic achievement. ‘But St Johnstone did well after the group stage and got some good results. ‘We know we let ourselves down in the Peterhead game in that competition. We found out a lot about ourselves in those games and have tried to grow from them. ‘There was a lot of stuff I didn’t like that day but we have grown since then. ‘The Partick Thistle game is the next challenge for us now in a brilliant competition. I genuinely am schoolboy excited about it. I’m looking forward to the game and looking forward to the challenge of trying and getting a result.’ Meanwhile, Thistle legend Chris Erskine may have played his last game for the club after suffering a serious hamstring injury. The 34-year-old is in his fourth spell at the club on loan from East Kilbride but manager Ian McCall revealed he is unlikely to play again this season. Of a player who has clocked up almost 300 appearances for the Jags, McCall said: ‘Unfortunately, it looks like a bad one. ‘If the physio’s diagnosis is right, it could be six or eight months. ‘It was hard for him because he came back really looking forward to being able to see cheerio properly to Partick Thistle, but we’ll just have to wait and see

what the scan says.’