The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Tangerines star reveals Jim Goodwin sent him text to apologise for brutal challenge
STUART ARMSTRONG has revealed that Jim Goodwin sent him a text to apologise for dishing out a brutal challenge the last time Dundee United and St Mirren met.
The date may have been Boxing Day but it was a forearm smash that poleaxed the Tangerines midfielder, with Goodwin subsequently banned for two matches after being served with a notice of complaint by SFA compliance officer Vincent Lunny.
Armstrong, however, insists that when the two sides meet again in tomorrow’s high noon William Hill Scottish Cup tie at Tannadice, there will be no hard feelings or lingering resentment.
The 21-year-old said: “Jim Goodwin texted me to apologise after the game, which was nice of him.
“I wasn’t happy at the time but it was good of him to get in touch. A few of the older boys in our team know him and say he’s a really nice guy out of football.
“He didn’t have to get in touch to say sorry so it was nice of him to do that.
“I won’t seek him out before the game, these things happen in matches. You have little tackles and incidents with different players but it’s all over after the game and you forget about it.
“I don’t hold grudges. Tempers run high in games but it’s all good after it. He does a good job of breaking up play for them and he likes to disrupt the opposition so he’s difficult to come up against.
“It could be their game plan to try to stop us again. Teams recently have done that against us, trying to close us down and stop us from playing, so that might be in their minds.
“I just want to do my best for the team and most importantly we need a win. I’ll be giving my all to make sure it happens.
“Confidence is a big thing in football but we’ve had a good week and our mind-set is good going into the game.
“The Scottish Cup is important, maybe the most important. The league is very important but it’s clear Celtic are far ahead and the battle for second place between Aberdeen and Motherwell is taking place and we’d like to rejoin that at some point.
“But our main focus is on a good cup run. We’ve got Morgaro Gomis back and Keith Watson, who came on when we won the final in 2010, and it was a nice feeling to watch them. We’d all like a taste of that.”
St Mirren sprang a surprise when they signed former Manchester United midf ielder Eric Djemba-Djemba on Thursday.
Armstrong admits the Cameroon player will be something of an unknown quantity but he insists that United will not be distracted by his arrival and are just fully focused on returning to winning ways after seven league matches without a victory.
He said: “Djemba-Djemba is a big-name player, who played for a big club although I’ve not heard too much about him since his Manchester United days.
“It’ll be interesting to see how he is against our boys.
“But we need a win just now after a run where we could have done a lot better and hopefully we can make it an unhappy start to life in Scottish football for him.
“The defeat to St Mirren on Boxing Day started our winless run. We were losing 1-0 and I felt we were coming back into the game until we got a man sent off. Things got worse for us from then on.
“It was the start of a poor run and we want to make amends.”