The first of the changes Robbie Neilson feels he needs to transform Dundee United into a team capable of winning the Championship could come before Saturday’s home clash with Partick Thistle.
The shock defeat at Alloa on Saturday, that saw United blow a hard-earned lead in an error-strewn final 20 minutes, prompted the manager to brand many of his current squad “not good enough”.
And he’s been working hard to make sure they can change that as soon as the transfer window opens at midnight.
While he’s done a good job of keeping the identity of those he’s targeted under wraps – Raith Rovers winger Daniel Armstrong is one of the few potential signings whose name has emerged – deals are close.
That’s likely to see a minimum of four arrivals in January.
“I’ll keep that (his planned signings) to myself but it’ll be more than one, that’s for sure. There needs to be a lot of changes here, I knew that before I took over,” he said.
While the weekend was the first time the manager admitted publicly his squad wasn’t up to scratch, it’s something he’s believed for some time.
Since he signed up as boss in October, he’s been planning changes and his determination to make them has been strengthened by a run of just one win in the past five games.
“The last couple of weeks haven’t been great. I knew when I came in it was about trying to get to the January window and, thankfully, we are now there.
“There are players in the dressing-room that aren’t good enough and it’s my job to change it. There are some in there that are good enough to take us where we need to get to, there are others that aren’t.
“We managed to get a bit of a lift when I came in and we were producing results but my objective was always to get to the January window as close as we could to the top of the league.
“Now we are at the January window it’s a case of getting better quality in and giving us our best chance to get out of this league because it’s vitally important we get to the top flight.”
Robbie has already admitted he wants another defensive midfielder and Saturday showed why as, without injured skipper Fraser Fyvie, United struggled.
A striker is another priority with Nicky Clark struggling for fitness since he arrived in the summer.
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