Highland heroics repeat will do nicely

Staggies result and display would be ideal

Sam Stanton hopes Dundee United can repeat their Ross County heroics when they head back to the Highlands.

Stanton was part of the Tangerines side that travelled to Dingwall last month and claimed three valuable points after Paul Watson’s first half strike gave United the lead.

A solid defensive display from Robbie Neilson’s men got them right back in the promotion mix, only to trip in the last two matches at home to Ayr and away to Morton.

They head north again today to take on Inverness Caley Thistle looking to regain momentum. Stanton believes they need to repeat their County feat if they are to secure another valuable victory.

The midfielder said: “It’s tough going up there to Inverness for anyone. We’re more than capable of going up there and getting a positive result.

“When we won at Ross County recently, it was a really good defensive performance that day.

“On our day, we know we can beat anyone. We just need to get back to doing what we were doing before, when we were on that good run.

“I don’t think there’s any real reason for our wee dip in form. It only takes a few wins and we could be right back up there by Christmas.”

United seemed to have the points in the bag at Cappielow last Saturday only to concede an equaliser just 12 minutes from time. That left manager Neilson deflated and it wasn’t much fun for Stanton either.

“It was disappointing down at Morton,” Stanton added. We felt we did enough to win the game. Again, we still had chances to kill the game off.

“We have got to do a lot better with the goal which we lost. That side of it was not good enough.

“We watched the video back of the game. To be fair, the manager does that with every game, whether we win or lose. We look at all the good stuff and the bad stuff.

“Like the rest of us, he was just unhappy and wants to see a reaction.

“We need to win these kind of games if we want to win the league.”

ICT are the draw specialists of the Championship, having racked-up 10 already this season. One of those came at Tannadice on October 20, when Pavol Safranko’s goal was cancelled out by Jordan White’s equaliser for the visitors.

Stanton said: “Inverness were good when they came to Tannadice earlier in the season.

“They are tough to play against. They have played a similar sort of style every time we have played against them.

“That was the case last year and they have carried it on this year.”

Meanwhile, as the Tannadice takeover drags on, Stanton insists that it is not on the minds of the players.

He said: “We would never use it as any sort of excuse. Whatever happens behind the scenes, it has nothing to do with the players.

“The manager has said just focus on ourselves, come in and train and take care of the games on a Saturday.”

Caley Thistle defender Brad Mckay reckons his side will struggle to catch his former manager Robbie Neilson by surprise today.

Mckay played under Neilson at Hearts before the 25-year-old left to join St Johnstone following the Tynecastle club’s promotion to the top flight in 2015.

Although the Jambos won the Championship title by an impressive margin of 21 points that year, Mckay says the key to Hearts’ success was Neilson’s extensive focus on nullifying the threat of opposing teams.

Mckay expects Neilson to be well drilled on John Robertson’s Caley Jags side this afternoon.

Mckay said: “He’s a bit different to any other manager I have worked under. Most managers have a way they want to play. They obviously look at the opposition but they will have their own way of going and beating a team.

“He’s different, though. If you are playing against a team that plays a three or a five at the back, he will train all week on how to break that down and beat them.

“It obviously worked very well at Hearts but there was one occasion when we played Queen of the South on the Saturday, expecting them to play three at the back.

“We trained all week on how to break them down but he turned the sheet over and they were playing four at the back.

“It kind of threw him off a bit so he said ‘just go out and play’. That was probably the one time he got caught out – although we ended up beating them anyway.

“That’s how he works. From Monday all the way through to Saturday, it’s about to break the other team down. That’s how he is and he’s not going to change that.”