Dundee United boss Peter Houston is confident lady luck will start smiling on his side again soon as he feels the Tangerines have suffered more than their fair share of misfortune recently.
They conceded two own goals at Motherwell in the league last weekend, while in Tuesday’s Co-operative Insurance Cup quarter-final Alan Gow scored for the Steelmen after Prince Buaben hit the ball off a post then on to a team-mate’s face.
“We are not getting any luck at the moment,” lamented Houston. “We have been losing goals late on in games in unfortunate circumstances and minor mistakes are being punished.
“But I have told the boys it will turn again for us. We will soon start getting the break of the ball if we continue to work hard.
“We need to get ourselves in front and take it from there because when we do that we are a hard team to beat.”
Houston also highlighted the fact that United are not scoring enough goals at the moment and those they do are coming almost exclusively from strikers Jon Daly and David Goodwillie Morgaro Gomis is the only other player to have hit the back of the net this season.
“We have been relying on Jon Daly and David Goodwillie to score goals, so that has to change,” he said. “You cannot just rely on your strikers. We need the midfielders to shoot rather than pass on the edge of the box sometimes because we do have players who can score.
“I’m confident it will fall into place, though. We didn’t play well last Saturday against Motherwell but on Tuesday we were much better. There is no doom and gloom here we are all looking forward to the Hibs game now.”ChallengeHouston is expecting a big challenge from an Easter Road outift determined to impress new boss Colin Calderwood after they slumped to defeat in his first match in charge at Aberdeen last weekend.
“By all accounts, Hibs have been doing double sessions all week so Colin will have been working his players hard to get his ideas across,” said Houston. “I am sure there will be a reaction at our place this weekend so we will have to be ready for that.
“Colin did not have the best of starts but he is a top-class coach and manager. Our games against Hibs are always very good because both teams try to play football.”
Houston is facing a possible injury crisis for the match and will delay naming his side until the last moment.
“Scott Severin, Craig Conway and Danny Swanson are all struggling,” he added. “Paul Dixon has picked up a knock, while Darren Dods is already ruled out so we have a few selection problems.”