Jamie McGrath insists there will be no “finger pointing” in the Dundee United dressing room following the dire defensive lapses that saw the Tangerines slump to a 3-1 defeat against Ross County.
Jordan White was allowed to run riot at Tannadice, bagging a hat-trick — the first goal coming after 38 SECONDS — against a backdrop of sloppy errors and lax marking.
United now find themselves bottom of the Premiership, two points adrift of the Highlanders and three points behind Kilmarnock.
There are just three games left for the Terrors to salvage their top-flight status.
“It was sloppy moments at the wrong times,” rued the Ireland international. “The first minute of the game? You can’t start a match like that.
“We bounced back after that and played quite well. We fully deserved to go in at half-time level.
“But we never got going in the second half and conceded at the wrong times.”
A team failure
The absence of Charlie Mulgrew appeared to be acutely felt.
Captain Ryan Edwards came into the side, while that facilitated a switch back to 3-5-2 from the 4-3-3 which had won three games in a row prior to defeat at St Johnstone.
Edwards, Loick Ayina and Scott McMann simply never got to grips with White and strike-partner Alex Samuel.
“Maybe that’s it (the view) from the outside looking in,” continued McGrath, when asked whether the leadership and quality of Mulgrew was missed in defence.
“But, to a man, we were probably ALL below par.
“It’s a collective thing and we need to stick together. We can’t be finger pointing. Togetherness is what will hopefully get us out of this.”
The run-in
McGrath’s first-half penalty brought the score back to 1-1 but was rendered futile by the second-half collapse.
But the on-loan Wigan man is confident United can piece together another pivotal sequence of results during the run-in — Livingston (A), Kilmarnock (H) and Motherwell (A).
“We have to remain positive,” McGrath continued. “There are still three games to go. With one win, we could be back up to 10th. We need to keep that in mind.
“We need to think back to that three-game winning run (Hibs, Motherwell and Livingston) and realise that we CAN do that again.”
He added: “We were five points adrift only a couple of weeks ago and it shows that things can change very quickly. We showed brilliant fight, determination and grit to drag ourselves back out of that position.
“The last two weeks haven’t been good enough — we got what we deserved against Ross County — but it’s still all to play for.”
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