As Dundee United contemplate another season in the Championship, our writer Ian Roache offers his thoughts on how to succeed next time.
~ There is always a next time
If you take a detached, rational look at the Championship season just ended it turned out exactly as it should have done.
Hibs, with their budget of around £3 million and average attendance of 15,000, should have finished champions and they did so.
United could have expected to finish second rather than third but what they did do as the second biggest side is earn a shot at promotion via the play-offs, albeit one lesson learned should be that you need to win the title to go up.
The Tangerines went top by beating St Mirren at Tannadice on Christmas Eve but was it realistic to expect them to stay ahead of Hibs? I would say no to that.
They still came extremely close to promotion, with just one goal separating an exhausted set of players from Hamilton in the end.
Also, had Simon Murray stayed on the park in the first leg against Accies and gotten the penalty he deserved then it might have been enough to negotiate the return match.
They were close but no cigar. They should now forget about it.
Dwelling on what might have been can only weigh them down so instead they should tell themselves that they will be in a position of strength when it comes to the big kick-off.
Yes, United will find themselves in a demanding division next season but with Hibs absent they will be the best supported and biggest club in the Championship and favourites to win the title.
~ Ray should stay
United will, quite rightly, hand Ray McKinnon the task of winning them the Championship title next season.
Many supporters will not agree with that view but, for me, he deserves to be given the opportunity of taking what will be a new-look team forward.
United have endured too much managerial mayhem in recent years and need a semblance of stability in the dugout.
The Tangerines didn’t just drop out of the Premiership a year ago, they crashed out of it.
The squad was in tatters and the club as a whole was in a state of shock.
It wasn’t an ideal working environment for McKinnon but he rebuilt as best he could.
There were misses as well as hits on the signing front and that is one area that will need to be improved upon because the squad can’t afford to carry passengers.
Overall, though, McKinnon is still the right man for the job and should be backed to lead the promotion push.
~ Look closer to home for players
United should have three priorities when it comes to recruitment – promotion, promotion, promotion.
Winning the league next season is the be all and end all.
Player recruitment should reflect that.
The less said about the whole Wato Kuate affair the better but it does highlight what can go wrong when the net is cast too widely for players.
Even the Dutch market failed United in the end, with Nick van der Velden and Frank van der Struijk falling short of what was required.
It need not be all about the domestic game – with the Irish and Scandinavian markets looking decent options – but I would hope the United team that lines up for the first game is full of solid, experienced and reliable players who know what it takes to succeed at Championship level.
