WE NEEDED THAT
Donnelly hails pair of heroes as United end winless streak
SIMON DONNELLY last night thanked Radoslaw Cierzniak and Chris Erskine for easing the pressure on the Dundee United management team.
Cierzniak was superb i n goal yesterday after his midweek howler against Dundee and Erskine scored a stunning winner to defeat Hamilton Accies as United ended their prolonged winless streak and kept alive their hopes of clinching third place in the Premiership.
Tannadice boss Jackie McNamara had been under increasing scrutiny, with details of bonuses in his contract having been leaked amid a form slump which had seen his side suffer eight defeats and two draws i n their previous 10 games.
And his assistant Donnelly admitted: ‘I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a sense of relief after the run we’ve had. It hasn’t been easy but we’ve got a really good result to hopefully kick-start us.
‘It was a great goal. Mario Bilate holds it in really well and plays a
crucial ball through to Charlie Telfer. He finds Erskine at the edge of the box — and he finishes it brilliantly.
‘Also, Rado was great. He’s had three or four saves in quick succession in the second half.
‘He’s a great lad, a great professional and you really feel for him on the back of the Dundee game.’
Erskine added: ‘It’s all been doom and gloom lately but we’re still in fourth place, pushing for third. Hopefully that win today will give us the confidence to spur us on to a European place.
‘We’ve been on a horrible run and we’ve taken a lot of stick, so it’s a relief to get out of it.
‘I thought Rado was superb and made some brilliant saves. He was obviously disappointed with the mistake he made in the derby in midweek but he more than made up for that today.
‘We wouldn’t have won it without him.’
Hamilton boss Martin Canning, meanwhile, has admitted he has found life as a manager difficult but insisted the acquisition of three or four new players during the summer will be key to him emerging successful.
The Hamilton Accies player-boss lost top scorers Tony Andreu and Mickael Antoine-Curier in January and replacements weren’t brought in but Canning is certain it will be addressed in June and July.
He is 13 games without a win since replacing Alex Neil but the performance yesterday — the visitors could count themselves unlucky not to have taken anything from the match — has given him extra optimism.
Canning said: ‘We have a very young team and I think the most senior player in our defence today was Mikey Devlin at 21.
‘So we need to add experience here and there and, hopefully, we can get three or four players in during the next transfer window. We lost players in January and didn’t replace them.
‘That apart, it has been a difficult run for me in my time as manager but all I can keep doing is working hard.
‘I thought our performance today was great. We hit the woodwork three times and the ball has rolled along the line on one occasion and Louis Longridge just couldn’t quite reach it.
‘The United keeper was brilliant today and he was their match-winner.’