Lawrence Shankland insists the coronavirus crisis at Dundee United has largely passed him by.
The Tangerines’ striker has adopted a philosophical approach to the club’s pandemic problem, arguing that it was a case of when rather than if Covid-19 would visit Tannadice.
Indeed, as he prepared for Sunday’s home showdown with runaway Premiership leaders Rangers, Shankland argued that an outbreak was inevitable.
He said: “For me, personally, it has been all right.
“I was one of the ones who was fine. I didn’t need to isolate and thankfully didn’t have the virus.
“It was always going to come to us at one point. We all knew that.
“It was just who got it and when. You wondered who was going to be the unlucky one.
“Not much changed for us day to day and we just tried to keep everything the same.
“Tam (Courts) and Adam (Asghar) came in and did great for us and kept the wheel turning. The boys have been thankful for the work they have done.
“You can pick it up anywhere,” added the Scotland international.
“There are guys with kids at school and all that. There are so many different ways and the chances of you getting it can be pretty high.
“It’s just one of those things and there is an acceptance (at clubs).
“I think if you asked every team, they would say they would probably expect to affect them at one point.”
As well as manager Micky Mellon and the entire first-team coaching staff, no fewer than nine of Shankland’s teammates were self-isolating.
They were all stuck at home as the Tangerines lost 2-0 away to Livingston last Saturday.
In perspective
That wasn’t ideal but Shankland put everything into perspective.
He added: “Obviously, you want a full squad but you just need to look at it like you do injuries.
“You could have nine injuries for a game.
“It was not something we got too caught up in. We would like to have a full squad all the time but unfortunately football doesn’t work like that.”
Sunday’s televised noon meeting with the Light Blues offers Shankland an ideal opportunity to catch the eye after a stop-start campaign.
However, the task United face is enormous, given the way Steven Gerrard’s men have been playing both at home and abroad.
Long odds
Maybe that is why some bookies have been offering odds as long as 18-1 for a home win this weekend.
Shankland said: “I’m not a bookie so I don’t know how the pricing works!
“The way Rangers are playing and the form they’re in…that’s probably still quite a big price.
“The way the league is at the minute, Rangers are flying.
“You seem them in the league, in Europe, in cup competitions – they are looking like a right good outfit.
“We know ourselves it’s going to be tough to get a result but we will have our game plan and know the way we’re going to play and we will go into the game and give it a go.
“We are expecting a tough one because they are a good side and they are showing that.”
Asked to describe United’s Premiership campaign thus far, Shankland admitted there is room for improvement when it comes to performances.
Stop-start
He said: “It’s been pretty up and down.
“We’ve had good spells.
“I think the main thing is we’re sitting in quite a good place in the table.
“We have a good points return after just getting promoted and we are still in the top six.
“We don’t want to be near the bottom, nobody does, so if we can keep ourselves where we are then we’ll be quite happy.
“Of course, we would all agree that in terms of football we could probably have played a bit better.
“It’s not been great to watch I can imagine and us as players have been getting a wee bit frustrated because we know we can do better.
“It is just one of those seasons where we have had to come up and battle away.
“We’ve had to find our own identity in a way to try and get points and we have done that so hopefully we can start turning these attacking moves into goals and turn draws into wins.”