Mikkelsen heads United in right direction
THOMAS MIKKELSEN reinvigorated Dundee United’s title aspirations as his timely double ensured they finally returned to winning ways.
The Danish striker’s headed goals in either half helped earn the Tannadice side their first win in six games after enduring a winless January which had meant losing valuable ground in the race for automatic promotion.
Ray McKinnon’s men pounced on the opportunity in this televised encounter to move to within six points of Championship leaders Hibernian, who had earlier drawn with Ayr United.
Mikkelsen, on loan from Odense until the end of the season, opened his account with a textbook header on the stroke of half-time, before adding another early in the second half after team-mate Tony Andreu had put United two ahead.
McKinnon said: ‘We’ve been threatening that for a couple of weeks.
‘It’s great for Thomas. He’d just been lacking a wee bit of fitness but has worked hard this last while to get up to speed.
‘It’s a tough ask to catch Hibs. They are a quality side, but anything can happen.’
After a slow start, Raith lost keeper Kevin Cuthbert to injury on the half-hour mark when he was forced to be replaced by Conor Brenan.
The visitors did threaten in 42 minutes when Declan McManus headed over after Kyle Benedictus had nodded the ball into his direction from Kevin McHattie’s free-kick.
However, United went ahead right on halftime. Scott Fraser’s free-kick was parried out by Brenan only as far as Paul Dixon, whose cross was headed firmly in at the near post by Mikkelsen.
They proceeded to add to their lead within four minutes of the restart, when Dixon’s cross was nodded back across goal by Mikkelsen, leaving Andreu to calmly flick the ball up before drilling his finish home.
In 53 minutes, Mikkelsen made sure with a textbook looping header from Simon Murray’s cross.
Afterwards, Raith boss Gary Locke said: ‘You could see the heads go down after the second goal and the players started to feel sorry for themselves.
‘But that’s one thing they can’t afford to do.’