Sean Dillon has insisted a horrific mistake from Dusan Pernis was not the reason for Dundee United’s defeat to Aberdeen at the weekend.
With the encounter evenly balanced at 1-1 midway through the second half, the Tannadice keeper let a harmless looking cross slip out of his grasp and drop at the feet of Chris Clark, who had a simple tap-in to put the Dons ahead.
From that point on Peter Houston’s men never looked like recovering. But Dillon has exonerated the Slovakian and suggested he and his outfield colleagues were more culpable for a sub-standard performance at Pittodrie.
He said: ”Obviously Dusan was disappointed. He knows himself he’s made a mistake. But Dusan has dug us out of so many holes over the last couple of years.
”I would be more upset by the first and the third goal, and how we defended them as a team and I defended personally, than I would about the second.
”We were poor at the first, and for the third in the way we dealt with their throw-in. Dusan’s was just a freak error.”
The United defender was at a loss to explain a poor Pittodrie performance that nobody saw coming, but he’s confident there will be no lingering after-effects for the top-six run-in.
Six SPL wins on the spin had the Tannadice men heading north for the New Firm derby brimming with confidence. Add into the mix three successive league defeats for their opponents, and another three points in United’s crusade for European qualification looked likely.
The Tangerines’ trademark application was still in evidence in the Granite City but so too were less characteristic traits slack defending and forward play lacking invention.
Dillon said: ”We’ve conceded bad goals, which isn’t like us considering how well we’ve been playing recently. All credit to Aberdeen but the truth of it is we weren’t at our best. That’s disappointing.
”As well as the poor goals, we didn’t pass it well either. We just weren’t at it. It’s hard to say why it didn’t happen for us. Our preparation didn’t change from any other week. It’s not a nice one to take but that’s just what you have to do.
”If we can go another six or seven game run without losing though we’ll be OK. There are a lots of ifs and buts with the European thing but there is a chance of the Champions League which is a big incentive.
”But I don’t think any pressure from that situation got to us against Aberdeen. It was just one of those days when we didn’t do what we should have done.”
United now have a free weekend ahead of them before they get the opportunity to reclaim fourth place from St Johnstone in the Tayside derby at McDiarmid Park, which is the first match after the split.
Ideally, the Irishman would like to be playing it a good deal sooner.
He said: ”If we had beaten Aberdeen then we’d have said isn’t it great we’ve got two weeks to enjoy it. Unfortunately, after losing a game you’d love to play on Monday or Tuesday to get that performance out of our system. But that’s not going to happen.
”You have to take the good out of the situation. We’ll dust ourselves down, have a couple of days off and then get ourselves ready for the St Johnstone match, which is a big one. They all will be from now on.”
Continued…
Saturday’s match could, and probably would, have panned out entirely differently if referee Calum Murray had awarded United an eighth-minute penalty. And he should have.
Gavin Rae was caught flat-footed by a clever reverse free-kick from Paul Dixon which Scott Robertson got to before the former Dundee man. Robertson was clipped, but the referee didn’t point to the spot and had a take on the incident that perplexed Peter Houston’s men.
Dillon said: ”Scotty said he was told it was an accident. That’s hard to accept. The referee had a job to do and I don’t want to get into a thing about him. But if I’m trying to win the ball and I don’t get it, I don’t mean it. It’s an accident.
”Yes it would have been nice to get the penalty and it was disappointing to hear the referee’s view on it, but the bottom line is we came in at half-time 1-1 and we went on to have a poor second half. We didn’t do ourselves justice.”
As Dillon alluded to, the penalty shout aside, United were the authors of their own downfall. On 12 minutes the away backline should have cut out the ball before it got to Darren Mackie, who lobbed Dusan Pernis for the opener.
It was Aberdeen’s turn for a bit of defence self-analysis just before the half-hour mark when the imposing figure of Jon Daly was somehow able to sneak away from his marker at the front post and volley home a Willo Flood corner to even things up.
Neither team exerted control on the match subsequently. That was until Pernis spilled a hopeful rather than dangerous Rory McArdle cross, and Chris Clark took full advantage to side-foot into an empty net.
The Tangerines were finished as an attacking force from then on, and the game was put to bed when they let a Kari Arnason throw bounce in the box and Ryan Jack powerfully headed past Pernis.
An Aberdeen side that grew into the game well was clearly motivated rather than distracted by their looming Scottish Cup semi-final against Hibs.
Goalscorer Clark said: ”Our aim is to finish seventh in the league but obviously we all want to be in the manager’s mind for next week. It was a strong performance all round and was a good win.
”We were poor last week at Hearts and against Inverness the week before. Everybody needed a lift to get our confidence back.
”I’ve never played at Hampden so hopefully I’m selected. We’ve sold over 12,000 tickets already and everybody wants to be one of the 16 players to get a jersey.”
Three wins out of three against United this season is an achievement even champions Celtic would be proud of, and manager Craig Brown was understandably thrilled with his team’s showing.
He said: ”I thought the first 20 minutes and the last half an hour were as well as we have played this season against arguably the best team in the country at the moment.
”I have got to admit that I think we were fortunate for the second goal. We got the breaks, although our goalkeeper didn’t have a save to make during the match.”
United manager Houston said: ”It was an off day but there were pivotal moments that could have changed the match. In the first half I thought we were denied a stonewall penalty and I just don’t understand the reason the officials gave our players when they told them it was an accident.
”I think most fouls are accidents with players just going in too late, but on this occasion he clipped his heels as he was about to shoot so I thought we were denied a stonewall penalty.
”Secondly, Dusan Pernis, who has been great for us, made an uncharacteristic error in giving them a tap-in. I’m frustrated and annoyed and I know the players will be as well as we have set ourselves high standards because of the run we are on.”