Sporle’s early strike sparks Shanks and United reach top six
DUNDEE UNITED 3 Sporle (1), Shankland (35, 83) LIVINGSTON 0
Boss Micky Mellon hailed brace hero Lawrence Shankland after the striker led Dundee United to back-to-back wins for the first time this season.
Shankland’s double sealed the deal in a 3-0 win over Livingston at Tannadice after Adrian Sporle’s opener less than a minute into the clash helped United on their way to a top-six return.
On top of his goals, Scotland hitman Shankland’s overall display was excellent, with boss Mellon happy to see his star man hitting form at the right time with four games to go until the split.
He said: “I’m a football fan as well. Lawrence is playing for the club I manage and it’s important in Scotland we celebrate players like that in our league.
“I thought he was that good, it was a fantastic centre-forward display for the whole game. The hold-up play, the movement, the cleverness and the technique.
“Too often we are too down on ourselves in Scotland.
“Sometimes you have to say: ‘You know what? We have some real talent in our division’.
“He took his goals really well and I’m pleased that he is a Dundee United player.”
United showed one change from last weekend’s win up at Ross County with Louis Appere coming in for Marc Mcnulty.
For Livingston, Efe Ambrose, Aaron Taylor-sinclair, Jackson Longridge, Steve Lawson and Alan Forrest dropped out for Jack Fitzwater, Jon Guthrie, Julien Serrano, Craig Sibbald and
Josh Mullin.
The Lions had barely touched the ball when the Tangerines took the lead just 49 seconds into the contest.
Argentine winger Sporle got himself into the box and on the end of Jamie Robson’s cross to lash a fierce volley past Livi keeper Max Stryjek.
Scott Robinson couldn’t run off a back injury picked up early in the encounter, with Jay EmmanuelThomas replacing him after 12 minutes.
Shankland had a glorious chance to net United’s second and his sixth of the season on 27 minutes.
Chasing what was seemingly a lost cause, the Scotland star juggled the ball over Stryjek but the angle was just too tight to squeeze home.
Just after the half-hour mark, referee Nick Walsh showed Peter
Pawlett a red card for a challenge on Jason Holt in the middle of the park.
Mellon was incensed by the decision and was forced into replacing goalscorer Sporle with Ian Harkes.
Inadvertently, the switch paid off, with Harkes slipping in Shankland on 35 minutes to double the Tangerines’ lead.
Siegrist had to look alive on 49 minutes to tip a Sibbald header over the bar as the Livi midfielder met Mullin’s inviting delivery from the right.
Scott Pittman was the next to get on the end of a Mullin inswinger but nodded straight into Siegrist’s clutches.
Soon after, Emmanuel-thomas fired over with the goal gaping as David Martnidale’s men took the game to the Terrors.
Both teams were down to 10 men just after the hour mark as whistler Walsh gave Fitzwater his marching orders for an innocuous tackle on Harkes on the edge of the area.
Saving Emmanuel-thomas’ speculative effort was about as much as Siegrist had to do in the closing stages as United completed a professional job, with Shankland making it 3-0 on 83 minutes.
The forward bagged his brace after robbing and nutmegging Mullin inside the area before curling beyond an outstretched Stryjek.
MOTHERWELL 1 O’hara (pen 67) HAMILTON ACCIES 4 Anderson (7), Callachan (pen 18), Ogkmpoe (31), Moyo (64)
Fir Park might have been almost empty, but it was not hard to imagine missing Accies supporters querying whether they could play their Lanarkshire rivals every week.
Of Hamilton’s halfdozen wins in the 2020-21 Premiership campaign, three have come against Motherwell.
That is 50% in old money and, if the statistic is not startling enough on its own, consider the breakdown of the matches.
Manager Brian Rice’s men have now scored eight times across the three derby games, while conceding just once.
It is the sort of dominance you might expect of the league leaders against a team fighting to avoid the drop.
From a team battling against relegation against a team above them it is remarkable.
Or frankly embarrassing, depending on which side of the divide you are coming from.
Only one of the losses has occurred on Graham Alexander’s watch, not that you
would have known it to listen to the manager’s outpourings on the sidelines.
He howled long and loud and was also sent off by David Munro, who clearly felt he had warned him often enough.
Not that victorious Accies boss Brian Rice cared.
“I don’t know what it is about the derby,” he said.
“Personally, I love coming here. I loved coming here as a player and I love coming here to watch football.
“My boys were up for it and I could not have asked any more from them today.
“They know what it is going to take to stay in this league and, hopefully, that is the start of things to come.”
His team made an electrifying start to the game and, having established dominance, never let up.
Had the Accies manager scripted it himself, it could scarcely have gone better.
They grabbed the lead with a goal that was as simple as it was clinical. Ross Callachan was worked free on the left and, from his neat cutback, Bruce Anderson stabbed home from a few yards out.
Callachan, playing in the hole behind Anderson and Marius Okmpoe, was very lively all day and had was at the heart of the game’s pivotal moment.
It was his clever movement that lured Stephen O’donnell into the foul that earned the
Scotland defender the red card with less than a quarter of the game gone.
It didn’t end there, either. Referee David Munro awarded Accies a penalty for the pull as well as the benefit of numerical advantage.
Callachan stepped up to take it himself and smashed confidently home, but was ordered to retake the kick because the ball had not been on the spot.
But, if it was a test of character, he passed it with flying colours, beating Liam Kelly with his second attempt almost as comfortably as he had with his first.
Motherwell rallied for a while, but fell into even deeper trouble when two became three before the break.
This time it was Marius Ogkmpoe, the other member of Accies’ impressive new strike pairing, who helped himself when smashing a right-foot shot home under the close attentions of Bevis Mugabi.
Then, when it was all looking a bit flat, his team got a fourth thanks to his inspired substitution, with David Moyo clipping home from Scott Mcmann’s cross.
Motherwell scored one of their own, Mark O’hara scoring from the penalty spot after Jamie Hamilton fouled Devante Cole in the box, but that felt not so much a consolation, more like a neighbourly gesture.