Blaming Dundee United’s meek malaise on the lack of a specialised combative midfielder is an ‘easy excuse’.
That is the assessment of boss Jack Ross, who is adamant an increased work rate and resilience throughout his team, rather than simply signing a player who focuses on breaking up the play, is key to sparking a recovery.
Calum Butcher and Jeando Fuchs have both departed Tannadice in 2022 and, with AZ Alkmaar, Hearts and St Mirren cutting the Tangerines open, many supporters — and ex-United star Scott Allan — have lamented the failure to replace them.
Ross attributes that to a concerted bid to change United’s style to a more expansive, possession-orientated one.
And he believes they can also be tight at the back, providing the personnel react to losing the ball far better.
“When you operate at certain levels of the game, we would all love a midfielder who can do that (tough tackling) and pass the ball really well and be creative,” said Ross. “It’s just like we would all love a centre-half who can defend brilliantly, step into the game and play passes.
“But the truth is: those players are usually the ones who are at the very top level of the game.
“So, while I can understand the question, we recruited on the basis of trying to be more expansive and play in a different way.
“I think we’ve passed the ball; certainly, our number of passes have been far higher. But it’s about the effectiveness of those passes and how we deal with the transition of the game. That hasn’t been good enough.
“It would be very easy to use that as an excuse but the goals we conceded last week (3-0 defeat against St Mirren), for example, wasn’t down to the ‘type’ of midfielder we have — it was down to our reaction as a team. I’ll own that.
“I could say, ‘if we had that sort of midfielder and he was in there, then we wouldn’t have conceded’. That’s not the case. If our reaction is better, as a team, then we wouldn’t have conceded.”
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