The football his team produced in the run-up to Christmas means Csaba Laszlo remains convinced Dundee United can finish the season with a strong run.
The Tangerines boss also expects Championship leaders St Mirren to suffer at least one slump between now at the end of hostilities in April.
And if he’s right, the promotion race will go right down to the wire.
Although Csaba has obviously been disappointed by his own team’s recent blip that’s seen just one win come from the last four games, he’s remained calm.
He knows they’ll come good again and expects a return to the kind of form that produced a seven-game unbeaten league streak up to the festive season.
“Every season there is no team, normally, that always is just going and going and constantly is up,” he said.
“Every time is a little period when it is bit down. In my opinion there have been two times Dundee United have been a little bit down. We have dropped but we have stabilised again.
“We had two games, Falkirk and St Mirren, that was when we could talk of crisis and we had a lot of injuries. Now I hope we can go up.
“This is the confidence I have and I hope also that the other teams drop down. Why not, that would be normal.”
Csaba believes the well-documented injuries to key men Fraser Fyvie and Scott Fraser did hit hard but feels the team have now adjusted to their long-term absences.
“We are playing completely different football to how the team played before and also it was very stable before the injuries to Scott Fraser and Fraser Fyvie,” he added.
“Against Dunfermline the team showed me we have character and I’m happy about that.”
The winter freeze of the past few days saw United’s U/20s had an unexpected day off yesterday after their Development League clash with Motherwell at Airdrie’s Excelsior Stadium was postponed because of blizzard conditions.
The club are keeping a close watch on the forecast with Saturday’s Scottish Cup trip to Alloa in mind.
Although the Wasps have an all-weather pitch, there have been problems with it in the past when temperatures have fallen below zero.
Both clubs, though, are hopeful Saturday’s tie will go ahead as scheduled.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.
