Paul Watson’s double on his home debut for Dundee United secured a big win over Partick and delighted Arabs.
But while the powerful defender was pleased to see his efforts hit the back of the net, he couldn’t declare himself entirely happy.
Because, like any member of a good rearguard, the 27-year-old is only satisfied when the goals-against column reads zero.
Although the injury-time effort the Jags got was no more than a consolation in a handsome United win, he makes no apologies for finding it irksome.
And however well the team plays, he thinks it’s important Csaba Laszlo’s Tangerines are always looking to improve.
“We were kind of disappointed to lose that goal late on. As a back four and a goalkeeper, we weren’t happy because we wanted that clean sheet,” he said.
“You set yourself small targets and there are goals as a defensive unit we want to achieve.
“The last two games we felt we should have had clean sheets. It wasn’t to be and that makes us hungrier to get them in the future.
“It’s important you always look to where you can improve, you don’t want to get carried away.
“If you lose a game you don’t want to get too down and if you win a game you don’t go overboard.”
Watson’s efforts last weekend came from set-pieces and that was no coincidence.
United have been working hard in training on their corners and free-kicks and, with the players they have at either end of them, Watson believes they can be a major weapon this season.
“It was two great deliveries from Fraser Aird and Yannick Loemba and if they can just keep putting the balls into those areas then boys like me, Freddy Frans, Adam Barton and Pavol Safranko are going to attack them all day.
“It’s something we have been working on as a team because set-pieces are a massive part of the game.
“If we can take full advantage of them, then we will win more games than we’ll lose.
“We do have a few of us who can make the most of these situations. Freddy’s already got among the goals and Adam can attack the high balls. And we have players coming back into the team who can attack these balls the same way.
“We have those players coming back from injury, so things are looking up at the minute and, if we can keep doing what we’ve been doing, we can keep winning games.”
United hit the road today with a trip to Alloa and, if they can return after securing a third league win on the bounce, that feel-good factor will be on the rise.
For Watson, it would also represent the kind of run that would send out a big message in what he views as an extremely-competitive division.
“Now we are concentrating on Alloa and making sure we keep building on what we’ve been doing.
“If you can get a run of wins in the league, it will be massive because, on their day, everyone can beat everyone.
“There were some crazy results again last weekend and that’s going to happen all season. If you can just take care of yourself, keep plugging away, you will come out on top at the end.”
He is aware of just how well United have turned things around in the past few weeks following what was a difficult start to the campaign, but it’s not taken him by surprise.
“There were a lot of new players coming in at the start of the season and it’s been a case of keeping on believing in what we’ve been doing on the training pitch where we could see the progress we were making.
“In the last couple of games we’ve been taking those things into games.”
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