‘First battle is against ourselves’

CHARLIE MULGREW feels Dundee United need to win a battle with themselves as well as taking on Celtic today.

United face the cinch Premiership champions on the back of a four-match losing streak which has seen them concede 15 goals.

Mulgrew ( right) has been examining his own part in their early- season struggles as well as participating in the collective efforts to gain that muchneeded improvement.

“As a player you think about it constantly,” the 36- year- old said. “As an individual you need to look at yourself and how you can help the team more. You look back at the clips, you look back at the game and think ‘how could I have helped?’

“I imagine all the lads – it’s a great bunch of lads – will look at themselves and do the same thing. This week has been good in training, we have worked hard and hopefully we have learned the things we can do better.

“It’s a different game altogether. It’s one where there is maybe not as much expectation. But we have not been on a good run so we have a job to push on and produce a performance so that’s what we are going to try and do. We need to focus on what we do and win that battle with ourselves first and then approach the game well and be ready for a tough game.

“It’s us against us to start with and then we are coming up against a right hard team so we need to be ready for the challenge.”

Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou has stuck with the same team three games running with Kyogo Furuhashi starting in the centre- forward role.

But he has a wealth of attacking options to bring off the bench with Giorgos Giakoumakis netting as a substitute in each of the previous t wo matches.

Mulgrew knows he and his fellow defenders face a major test whoever lines up for his former club.

“Listen, you could go through the whole team,” he said. “They rotate well, they move well and they try and affect you to create space for others with unselfish runs. It’s difficult. They have a way of playing and it’s up to us to make it uncomfortable for them and try and impose ourselves on the game.”