Last season, the only thing that could have kept Louis Moult out of the Dundee United team was injury or suspension.
This time around, it’s down to personnel.
Jort van der Sande hasn’t yet scored since arriving at United from NAC Breda, but Tangerines fans have taken to the Dutch striker anyway.
It’s hard not to like a player who goes about his business the way he does.
He’s big, strong, not afraid to throw his weight around; in short, he’s a serious handful for defenders.
In the early stages of the campaign – and with a new team still gelling – Jim Goodwin has opted for presence at the attacking end of the park, rather than Moult’s pure finishing prowess.
Louis has done really well for United. He’s a proven goal-scorer.
And the fact that van der Sande is keeping him out of the team shows the sort of impact he’s had both on the training ground and in games.
He’s also clearly a good type – and that’s what a manager wants from his squad.
You have to build a squad full of gifted football players, but you also have to ensure they are solid personalities.
All it takes to alter the atmosphere in a squad is one person spreading negative vibes.
Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case at present at Tannadice.
Jim Goodwin has had a little bit of stick during his time as manager.
But the signings he’s made in this window strike me as exactly the signings he wanted to make; he’s been backed to assemble a squad according to his vision.
The standard of the players he’s brought in has been really impressive.
I need to be careful not to keep going back to the Falkirk cup game, but I think if you go back to that, it was a little bit of a scare. It didn’t quite look good enough.
But credit to them, ever since then they’ve raised their game and have never looked as poor again.
I wouldn’t expect Jim Goodwin to make wholesale changes at any point soon – the team he’s had on the park is clearly finding its feet.
How far can they go? If they keep gelling, the top six won’t be out of reach.
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