Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
‘We’ll learn our lessons’ says United boss Mellon
DETAIL – Micky Mellon said it himself.
That’s what cost his Dundee United side victory on their return to the Premiership.
Mellon’s Tangerines more than proved their ability to compete at the top level during a first 45 minutes against St Johnstone that offered plenty of positives.
They were much slicker than the Perth side (an established Premiership outfit, let’s remember), not to mention more aggressive and more street smart.
They took the lead early on when Saints’ Liam Craig was penalised for inadvertently blocking a Liam Smith effort with his arm, leaving Nicky Clark to notch from 12 yards.
When Callum Davidson’s team were subsequently reduced to 10 men before the break, it seemed the game was there for United to seize.
But the Tangerines’ second half showing was as tentative as their first-half performance was swaggering – and the fact United’s post-interval slump came when they had a numerical advantage was a huge disappointment. So why did it happen?
The devil, as United’s manager suggested, was in the detail.
“When you go a goal up and the opposition goes down to 10 men and you have played the way we had done you would expect, as professionals, to see it out,” said Mellon, fresh from his first taste of Scottish dugout action.
“We just switched off in one moment of detail that we have worked very hard on. The players will know that. We were a wee bit loose when the ball got turned over and we get punished for that.”
Mellon, having been round the course plenty of times both on and off the pitch in England, is shrewd enough a manager to know singling out “loose” players at this early stage of his tenure at Tannadice will do him no favours.
Especially when, on Saturday, Lawrence Shankland was particularly worthy of the tag.
United’s talisman was uncharacteristically quiet in the first half against Saints.
Perth captain Jason Kerr was tasked with sticking to Shankland like glue and did so effectively, limiting the Tannadice hitman to a bit part in the game before the break.
However, with United a goal and a man up after Michael O’Halloran’s sending off, last season’s top scorer emerged for the second half looking determined to make an impact in front of goal.
Shankland’s keenness to open his top-flight account was clear to see.
Instead, after fluffing a couple of chances, the striker appeared to tire 10 minutes in and, with Saints in possession, clearly gave up on chasing possession from Saints’ Ali McCann, despite his manager’s audible encouragement from the technical area.
With Shankland out of gas, McCann, unchallenged, found Kerr, who then found Danny McNamara, whose cross led to the botched Mark Connolly clearance lashed home by Liam
Craig for the short-handed Perth side’s equaliser.
Instructions were given by Mellon. Instructions weren’t followed. A goal was coughed up.
At this level – even against a weakened side – such things can be decisive.
“Credit to St Johnstone, they dug in with 10 men and then we have to go and break down a block,” said the United boss.
“We kept prodding and poking away at it but we just weren’t able to undo a packed block.
“But we will learn our lessons and move on. That’s what it’s about, we are in a transition, we have moved up a division.