Calum Butcher has issued a rallying cry to his Dundee United team-mates insisting they need to ‘roll their sleeves up’ and demand more of each other.
United slumped to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Hibs at Tannadice on Saturday to extend their winless run to seven games and drop out of the top six.
Ahead of tomorrow’s crucial trip to struggling Motherwell, midfield enforcer Butcher has called on his fellow-Terrors to stick together as they try to reignite their Premiership season.
Speaking after the loss to the Hibees, in which he returned from a troublesome hamstring injury, a visibly frustrated Butcher said: “There’s nothing we can do now – we’ve just got to roll our sleeves up and go again.
“I know it’s a typical thing to say but that’s all you can do in these moments. We’re battling away and working as hard as we can for each other.
“We wanted a reaction from the other night (the 5-1 loss to St Mirren) and we got it at times, we just have to be better on those little details.
“We’re very frustrated and we need to start demanding it from each other. It’s getting to that stage.
“We want to do well as a group, no one here is taking anything lightly.
“We work hard for each other and battle away, we just need that little bit of quality to finish things off.
“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves.”
Motherwell and Ross County ‘massive’ for Tangerines
Following tomorrow night’s trip to Fir Park, the Tangerines are back on the road again as they head north to face lowly Ross County.
Butcher believes both are ‘massive’ games and how they come out of their current sticky spell will tell the team a lot about themselves.
The 29-year-old added: “They’re massive games after we’ve gone through a tough period and we need to come out the other end now.
“Tomorrow could be the turning point for that but we have stick together. That’s the only way out of it.
“Every team has these tough periods and it’s how you come out of them.
“I saw really positive signs on Saturday. I felt good on the pitch and I felt at 1-0 we could’ve still got something.
“The second goal kills it and I felt like on Saturday we just didn’t get the rub of the green. Little moments – a cross or a pass or a set piece – just weren’t dropping for us.
“We’re in that little difficult period that everyone has throughout the season, and probably for longer than we’d like, but we can’t feel sorry for ourselves.
“We need to stick together, none of this going against each other, just working hard as a group.
“We talk a lot in the dressing-room, there’s a lot of togetherness here and we just need to stick to that because that will get us through these tough spells.”
“There’s no one hiding away from everything”
The recent run of poor form sees United in the bottom half for the first time since October.
Butcher is convinced their slump of late is not to do with a lack of confidence in the camp and insists they are not hiding from the situation they find themselves in as the slide down the standings.
He commented: “I don’t think it is a confidence thing. I think we’ve got boys in there that believe in their ability.
“We’re not a group that makes excuses or a club that wants to be like that.
“Sometimes you can’t put your finger on it and just have to keep going.
🗣 "We need to be on top our game to win games and we've not done that recently. We will put it right, we need to put it right."
🎥 Hear from manager Micky Mellon and captain Mark Reynolds after today's defeat to Hibernian.#UnitedTogether pic.twitter.com/XQ7JlMyysB
— Dundee United FC (@dundeeunitedfc) January 30, 2021
“There’s a thin line with holding each other to account because there’s different personalities in the dressing-room.
“Boys react to different things. You can scream and shout at some boys and you lose them or you get a reaction.
“It’s on the personality of the player. Gone are the times you can grab someone by the neck – it’s not like that anymore.
“We do hold ourselves accountable and we come in to work hard.
“You hear us out on the pitch – there’s no one hiding away from everything.”
Dundee United 0 Hibs 2: Tangerines seven games without a win as they fall out of top six