dundee united 1 Mikkelsen 64 inverness ct 1 Vigurs 30
This hard-earned point may be enough to help United into the play-offs but they will not return to the Premiership playing like this.
Quite frankly this was another dire performance from Csaba Laszlo’s team who showed little or no sign of improving on their recent run of dreadful form.
United displayed no confidence, class or cohesion against a far superior Inverness team.
Afterwards Tannadice manager Laszlo admitted: “We won’t catch St Mirren now, the gap is too big. Finishing second must be our priority.”
Saints are now 19 points ahead of United even although the Tangerines do have three games in hand.
Laszlo continued: “At least we showed in the second-half we can play.
“We were poor in the first half and Inverness certainly could have scored more.
“It’s difficult to believe Inverness are third bottom of this league. They are very strong so I must compliment my players.”
Inverness manager John Robertson was bang on the mark when he said afterwards: “We could easily have been 5-0 up at half-time.
“We started the second-half the same way and for an hour we were fine until United scrambled an equaliser. This led to a spell when they peppered our goal and we were thankful that Mark Ridgers pulled off two tremendous saves before we rallied and finished strongly.
“So it was hugely frustrating to have played so well for so long yet only leave with one point.
The visitors started as if they intended to wrap up things as quickly as possible in preparation for Saturday’s Irn-bru Cup final and should have been two up after just 10 minutes. However George Oakley shot straight at Harry Lewis then they allowed United to scramble the ball away after a mispunch by Lewis.
And so it continued until Iain Vigurs leapt alone to head in a disputed Liam Polworth corner.
This was the least Inverness deserved as United struggled to string two passes together.
United’s equaliser arrived when Thomas Mikkelsen got on the end of a Billy King cross and somewhat untidily redirected the ball back across goal and into the far corner.