Shankland the man to stop for Goodwin
JIM GOODWIN admits it’s all about stopping Lawrence Shankland for St Mirren at Tannadice this afternoon.
The pair played alongside each other at the Paisley club when the striker was sent on loan to the Buddies back in 2015 and while Goodwin doesn’t credit the Scotland internationalist’s remarkable rise to prominence with his spell in black-and-white, he believes that his time in the Championship was well spent as the forward got a taste for senior football.
“I would like to think he looks back on his time here fondly,” Goodwin said. “But I think the big turning point in his career was when he became more focused and matured a bit.
“You see it all the time with kids coming through the academies. Maybe the academy football isn’t quite as intense and you probably don’t need to be quite as fit as you do at first team. I think Lawrence realised quite quickly he had to sort out his lifestyle and get fitter and stronger.
“When you look at the shape of Lawrence when he was here and look at him now – he looks like a proper athlete now.”
Keeping Shankland quiet will surely be crucial if St Mirren are to leave Dundee with points to show for it – but Goodwin reckons he has just the players at his disposal to do precisely that.
He continued: “Lawrence has a little bit of everything. He is technically very good, leads the line well, holds it up well, and doesn’t need too much encouragement to get shots off. When I was manager at Alloa, Lawrence was at Ayr United and was one of the leading goalscorers in the league.
“He is a handful. You can’t take your eye off him for a moment. He is not one who has blistering pace but all his other attributes are positive. He is very clever, his movement and he brings the midfielders in to play.
“We will have to be at our best but I have to say the challenges we have put to Joe Shaughnessy and Connor McCarthy already this season, in terms of keeping Dykes quiet and they had a real tough task against Edouard midweek – and that’s probably as quiet an evening as Edouard has had for a long time.
“So I think the two lads relish that sort of challenge. Even if Lawrence isn’t available you have Nicky Clark who is experienced, uses his body well and has an eye for a goal. As much as the focus will probably be on Shankland prior to the game they also have others capable of causing you problems.”
Meanwhile, Micky Mellon insists that Dundee United will continue to play “have-a-go” football as they get used to life in the Scottish Premiership.
The Tannadice outfit came up to the top flight after being declared Championship winners when last season was cut short due to the coronavirus crisis and started encouragingly with one defeat in their first four.
However, United have since been chastened by three straight defeats, two of them 4-0 losses to Kilmarnock and Rangers respectively.
Mellon said: “We were really disappointed that we’ve lost the games. Absolutely.
“But we wouldn’t be saying anything that I wouldn’t have expected to be saying at the start of the season, in knowing that we have to keep improving all the time.
“We knew that we were going to go into these games at a higher level and we’re going to get the ultimate test in terms of where we are up to as a group.”