Jim Spence on Saturday

Return to Promised Land is in United’s hands

Dundee United’s players have their future in their own hands. A return to the Premiership is tantalisingly within their reach. They have to beat one team in their own division and one in the top league over two matches apiece and the prize is won. Easy to say, more difficult to achieve, but United fans are now entitled to believe that this team can return them to the Promised Land.

A rich vein of form is being mined at the right time and the jackpot is golden.

Robbie Neilson’s side are hitting form at the ideal time.

Three wins on the spin, with two of them against Ayr and Inverness – one of whom they’ll meet in the first of the play-off games – is top form ahead of matches which will determine the immediate future of the club.

The Premiership is the place to be for a big Scottish outfit.

The Championship is not without drama and excitement but the real action is in among the big boys, with the potential for glory and, crucially, decent income streams.

United look solid at the back with only two goals conceded in the last four outings, with three of those games against the other three top sides in the division.

The confidence is surging through the tangerine ranks and so it should be.

Defensively sound, creative and mobile in midfield – and with a fit Osman Sow and Pavol Safranko offering formidable goal threat – the Tannadice side are now showing all the hallmarks of a team capable of beating the opponents standing in their way of a Premiership return.

Positive thinking is a powerful tool. Neilson as head coach is embracing it and he’s right to do so.

With Bouhenna or Reynolds or Connolly to choose from as an indomitable central defensive pairing, and McMullan’s magnificent sashaying runs terrorising opposition markers, added to the dangerous duo leading the line, the United boss need fear no one.

Football returns the efforts invested. Hard work and belief and persistence pay off. It takes time but now the fruits of the labour of all those involved at Tannadice are starting to fully bloom.

Over-confidence can be a dangerous elixir but, unlike self-doubt and defeatism, it’s only occasionally deadly.

The noises issuing from the United camp are the sweet sound of men embracing their talents and abilities, in the knowledge that they are equal to the task.

Scottish football players at one time were famed for being gallus and for a bit of swagger. These are admirable qualities when backed up with substance.

Humility is a fine quality but it is best exercised after a match.

During the game the aim of the exercise is to leave your opponents in no doubt that you are the superior team.

The great Willie Miller once told me that in Aberdeen’s heyday, he could tell by looking at Rangers players in the tunnel that they were beaten before they started, such was the confidence that great Pittodrie side exuded.

United should feel similar confidence in their abilities, with the prize of promotion firmly within their view, and their grasp.

Picture: SNS. Now fit, Osman Sow, along with Pavol Safranko, are a real goal threat.

Robbie Neilson has watched his side hit form at exactly the right time.