Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Raith Rovers boss says United should get ‘full credit’
IAN Murray admits Dundee United deserve “full credit” for seeing off the challenge of his Raith Rovers side to clinch the Championship title.
Although already a foregone conclusion, the Tangerines officially secured top spot and promotion back to the Premiership last Friday.
Depending on the results in this week’s finale, the Tannadice side’s winning margin could be anything from three to nine points.
Whatever the gap ends up, Raith have pushed the favourites almost all the way in a fantastic campaign.
However, despite perhaps ruing dropped points at some stages along the way, Murray says he can have no arguments that the best team won the league.
“Overall, I’ve got no complaints,” Murray said ahead of United receiving the trophy tonight.
“After a 36-game season, I always think the team that deserves to be top of the league is top of the league.
“You’ve got to give a lot of credit to the opposition. They’ve done what everybody expected them to do.
“But there’s one thing having expectations and it’s another thing going and delivering.
“So, full credit to Dundee United.
“They have obviously been the most consistent team over the course of the season. They’ve had a few hiccups along the way, but that’s because the league is so difficult.
“They have had to deal with other teams going up to Tannadice on a good pitch and in a good stadium, which is a big occasion for some players and teams.”
As well as taking just one point from a possible 12 against Airdrie, Raith have also struggled this season against their final opponents, Arbroath.
Twice, they have thrown away a two-goal lead against the Red Lichties – once ending in a 2-2 draw in December and the other finishing with a costly 3-2 loss in March.
Those five dropped points could have come in seriously handy for Rovers in the final straight of the title race.
However, Murray is refusing to brood over such sliding doors moments, given the Stark’s Park side also benefited from a habit of finding late winners at the start of the campaign to keep them in the hunt.
“I sometimes still scratch my head and wonder how we didn’t win both the games against them – the 2-2 here and the 3-2 at Arbroath,” he added with a playoff semi-final looming against either Airdrie or Partick Thistle.
“But I don’t dwell on it too much, because there’s been games where we scored a lot of late goals at the start of the season that could easily have been draws.
“I probably look at stuff like the last-minute free-kick against Queen’s Park that hits the bar, for example. That’s a point we lost there.
“We probably should have scored against Queen’s Park at Hampden; there’s another two points.
“These are probably more that were on a knife-edge. And ones, when you look back, where if moments in games had fallen our way then we would have had more points.”