PHENOMENAL!
United hero Mikkelsen shows bottle to stun Saints
THOMAS MIKKELSEN flew his own fan club to Scotland for yesterday’s Irn-Bru Cup Final — only for the Danish contingent to find itself stranded in a Dundee pub as he scored the winning goal.
The on-loan Odense striker was left out of Ray McKinnon’s starting line-up for the Fir Park showdown against St Mirren but emerged as the hero when he headed home Simon Murray’s second-half cross.
The striker lapped up the celebrations with the club’s supporters in the sunshine and then beat a trail for Tayside where his welcoming committee awaited after failing to find a way to Lanarkshire. ‘My girlfriend’s family came across from Copenhagen but it was last minute and too late to arrange tickets and stuff to bring them here,’ he stated. ‘They just decided to stay in Dundee to watch it in the pub and so I’ll head back and hope they’re not too drunk!’
United were outplayed for much of the final yet took the lead through a spectacular Tony Andreu volley that was equalised just seconds later by Saints frontman Rory Loy.
The key moment arrived when Mikkelsen was introduced for Nick van der Velden and rose to score his fourth goal since arriving in January.
He said: ‘The gaffer had told me just to go on and do what I’m good at, which is getting into the box and getting my head on things.
‘Simon is capable of going out to the wing
THE sponsors’ brew enjoys a reputation for its restorative powers and, after gulping down a cupful of the fizzy stuff, Dundee United manager Ray McKinnon will hope it works its magic on Dundee United’s ailing promotion challenge.
A clever substitution from the Tannadice boss was the pivotal moment in United claiming the Irn-Bru Cup at Fir Park, on-loan Odense forward Thomas Mikkelsen coming off the bench to head the winning goal.
For large parts, the game had looked St Mirren’s to lose. Both on and off the pitch they met the occasion with greater verve than their opponents.
From the very outset the Paisley fans chanted and sang like they were at a big outdoor party while the smaller United contingent sat tentatively waiting for what they must have feared would be the latest instalment in a run of worrying form that has seen them win just one of their last ten league games, and slip to fourth place in the Championship table.
In the end, they celebrated a victory that encompassed both fighting spirit and tactical acumen, qualities that bode well for the fight to earn a return to the SPFL
Premiership, even if that will require an arduous play-off schedule.
The outcome would have been different had Saints shown better composure in front of goal.
Rory Loy could not be faulted when he hit the post with an instinctive volley, but Lewis Morgan and Kyle Magennis were guilty of snatching at chances.
So it was against the run of play when United broke the deadlock. Tony Andreu had posted notice of his threat with a shot which flew wide but he blew the final wide open with a quite lovely piece of technique that saw him volley the ball into Billy O’Brien’s right-hand corner from 22 yards.
Having scored in such sensational fashion, Andreu might have felt entitled to longer than 52 seconds of satisfaction — but that was exactly how long it took between his wonder goal finding the rigging and Loy’s equalising shot doing the same at the far end.
United’s concentration was awful as Gary Irvine strode forward from right-back and cut the ball back for Loy to roll home a simple finish off the post.
As cheap as the concession was, McKinnon knew his side had scarcely deserved their lead and Saints’ dominance convinced him to make the change that would settle the match.
The withdrawal of the woefully ineffective Nick van der Velden saw Simon Murray drop wide to the left, with Mikkelsen coming on at centre-forward.
The combination soon paid glorious dividends for United, with Murray firing over a deep cross and the Dane attacking the ball to head home from a few yards out.
‘We just wanted to isolate their full-back and get at him,’ said McKinnon afterwards. ‘Bringing Thomas on gave us that threat in the box but we still had to get the delivery in there. To be fair to Simon, it was a tremendous cross and Thomas produced a great header to win the game.’
Defeat was not easy for Jack Ross to swallow but his overarching priority is to avoid relegation from the second tier.
He took pride and encouragement from the way his team played — and the reaction of the impressive and noisy following that turned up to cheer them on — and indeed applauded their efforts at the end. ‘The supporters in Paisley quickly tell you what they think and their reaction tells us a lot,’ said Ross. ‘We shouldn’t be satisfied with saying we competed against Dundee United on the day — we should have grander ambitions than that. ‘We’d be happy to take that level of performance into our remaining games. These players believe in what we’re doing. If we maintain that level in our remaining games, we’ll win enough of them.’
McKinnon has had a bumpy time of it since swapping the manager’s office at Raith Rovers for his former club and clearly revelled in the chance to lift a trophy in front of the fans he used to entertain as a playmaker.
‘It’s a great feeling to get some silverware,’ he added. ‘I watched last year’s game and I saw the enjoyment the Rangers supporters got from this final, so I wanted us to do the same.
‘We kept calm and, hopefully, the guys will take confidence — more importantly, from the way we passed the ball.’
Thomas gave us a threat in the box and his great header won us the game