Dundee United are ticking all the boxes as champions, says Rab Douglas.

It is going to take one of the biggest football capitulations of all time for Dundee United not to go up to the Premiership as champions. I certainly won’t be predicting such a collapse. When you’re pushing for a title there are a few boxes you need to tick and United are putting big red ones in all of them.

We all know in Lawrence Shankland they’ve got the best goalscorer in the division who was the key difference between them and the rest in the first few months of the campaign.

But you need more than that to last the pace and United are now showing that they can spread the goals around.

Sam Stanton was the match winner against us on Saturday, for example.

It was one of those games where you could say a draw would have been a fair result but teams who win leagues find a way to make the breakthrough, however scrappy the goal might be, and then see the game out.

When United had that wobble, losing at Ayr, Alloa and Queen of the South in a row, there were genuine question marks over the mentality of the squad. But those have been answered. Arbroath is the sort of place where you will come unstuck if your attitude isn’t spot on but we never got the impression the United lads had lost their focus.

That tells me they won’t sit back and rest on their laurels now they have opened up a 13-point gap over the chasing pack.

I was impressed with the goalie, Benjamin Siegrist, and there is quality in every position in front of him.

What’s more, I’m sure Robbie Neilson will get to spend in January if he asks his chairman.

I can see Dundee finishing second, particularly as Kane Hemmings is now scoring again, but the teams going for the play-offs will keep cutting each other’s throats.

It would need United to lose three in a row again to give the chasing pack any hope but I just can’t see that happening.

“Arbroath is the sort of place where you will come unstuck if your attitude isn’t spot on

Rash Killie

The sacking of Angelo Alessio at Kilmarnock looks very harsh to me.

Kilmarnock are a club punching above their weight and fifth in the table, which is where they are, is pretty much where they should be hoping to be.

I read that Kris Boyd knew from day one that things weren’t right at his old club but why didn’t he say that earlier, rather than after the man has been sacked if that was the case?

The word is that the players weren’t having him. It wouldn’t be the first time player power has won and it won’t be the last. Frank de Boer’s 77 days at Crystal Palace has to be the worst example of that.

There will be big pressure on those Killie players to get a few wins without Alessio now, though.

We’ll soon see if they were getting results despite him or because of him.

Brechin resurgent

It’s good to see Brechin City getting a couple of wins.

I wouldn’t want to see any of the Angus clubs struggle to stay in the SPFL.

I was chatting to Mark Wilson recently and he was confident things would turn.

It certainly helps when your goalie is scoring goals from 90 yards, like Lewis Mcminn did at Stirling the other week.

I only managed to do that in the amateurs.

Picture: SNS. Benjamin Siegrist impressed against Arbroath.