Cup semi no excuse for loss says Mellon
Honest Micky Mellon refused to use Saturday’s forthcoming Scottish Cup semi-final showdown with Hibs as an excuse for their Tannadice flop show at the hands of lowly Ross County.
Mellon’s cup hopefuls slumped to a dismal defeat less than a week after hitting the heights with a thumping 3-0 win away to Aberdeen at Pittodrie in last Sunday’s quarter-final destruction.
But the United boss was quick to dismiss suggestions they had one eye on next weekend’s last-four clash with Jack Ross’ Hibees.
Mellon said: “I have been asked about that and it is a difficult one.
“It would be easy for me to stand here now and say it was a distraction.
“That would be the easy answer but we spoke all the time this week about fighting hard to not allow any excuses to come our way and say it was a distraction.
“We wanted to be a team who can put two performances together and a team that can adjust and adapt to what the game is saying to us.
“But we weren’t able to do that.
“I keep coming back to it – it was two really poor goals which is always going to make it really difficult for ourselves but there was a lot of time after that and a lot of things that disappointed us.
“We can’t dwell on it, we have to move on with lessons learned.”
Mellon admitted his players need to produce more when things go against them like yesterday.
He added: “If I’m breaking it down and not making any excuses, then we gave away two poor, cheap goals.
“We didn’t have the answers to get back into the game against a team fighting to stay up.
“I’m not complaining with the way Ross County played. They were stubborn and slowed the game down.
“To be honest, I would have done the same thing. It’s a frustrating afternoon overall.
“We need to speak now about how you get that quality and composure when games like that go against you.
“That’s the big thing because we just didn’t have the answers to the questions asked.
“I always look for positives. And that was the young boys coming off the bench – and that was about it.”