A horror film topped the bill at Tannadice as the Dundee United players were made to sit through their very own video nasty.
Manager Peter Houston compiled a collection of his team’s defensive blunders stretching back weeks and the squad were made to watch the footage.
Houston has had enough of what he terms ”individual errors” and believes the players have to stop making mistakes if United are to climb the table.
”We have done up a video of the goals we have lost for the players to look at,” he said. ”Looking at the video and being able to point out what has been going wrong is always helpful.
”It is a problem because we are making far too many individual errors. The strange thing is that it seems to be the experienced players who are making the mistakes, not the younger ones.
”We know we have to defend better right from the front and work hard on eradicating the mistakes. It is the whole team.
”And it is not just going to be the Aberdeen game. I am going back a few matches because it has been going on for a while now. We started losing three goals a game and that is simply not good enough.
”When I was making up the video I think I only counted one goal from the last six weeks where we have been cut open from open play and that was Garry O’Connor’s first strike for Hibs at Easter Road.
”The rest have all come from mistakes, people switching off and also giving away free-kicks.
”Watching games back on video is valuable because you can point things out. Then we will spend the build-up to the St Johnstone game on Saturday working on making sure they don’t happen again.
”The boys are honest, they know they have been making mistakes and we are all going to work together to cut them out.”No panicHouston insisted there is no need to panic despite a disappointing start to the SPL season. The 3-1 defeat to the Dons at Pittodrie on Saturday saw United slump to fourth-bottom spot in the table.
Perhaps most worryingly of all, they are shipping goals at an alarming rate, with 20 conceded in their last eight league matches.
However, Houston said time is still on the Tangerines’ side.
”We didn’t start the season particularly well last year but still finished with 61 points,” he pointed out. ”It is still early in the season and we are only three points away from the top six.
”Let’s keep things in perspective we have not had a great start but we are not far away from the top half of the table.
”Every year this club’s priority is to get into the top six. It is still very early days and we are only a few points away from that.”
He added: ”We need to get results but, my goodness, if we are panicking now then we have no chance.”
United will be without midfielder Danny Swanson for the next few weeks after he strained his medial ligament against Aberdeen.
”Danny looks like he will be out for a few weeks,” the manager confirmed. ”He has done his medial ligament and is away for a scan so we will know more later in the week.”