Dundee United goalkeeper Derek Stillie has admitted that he is just one of many individuals who is playing for his Tannadice future at the moment.
Stillie has lost 11 goals in all 3 of United’s SPL ties in 2007 and there are rumoured that Levein is searching for another goalkeeper to put pressure on the 33-year-old’s position.
“Everyone is playing for their futures,” admitted Stillie.
“The manager has his ideas and, outwith the cup tie, performances in recent weeks haven’t been good enough for a club like Dundee United.”
“Confidence was pretty low to start with when manager came in and we are all very much aware of the fragile position we are in – but he got a great reaction out of all the players and we put together some good results.”
“Losing in the manner we did to Falkirk and Rangers has maybe led to self-doubt setting in again, but we need to pick ourselves up and get back to what we were doing six weeks ago when we were running over teams.”
Dundee United lost 1-0 at Rugby Park last weekend, but Stillie put on a heroic performance to prevent Jim Jeffries side from winning the league match more convincingly.
Stillie saved a 47th minute penalty from Steven Naismith and also pulled off several great saved to deny Allan Johnstone, but couldn’t prevent Peter Leven from scoring his 61st minute winner.
The keeper continued, “We’ve now conceded six penalties in the last eight games so I’ve had plenty of practice recently.”
“You save one and you think maybe we’ll go on from here and get a win, but it wasn’t to be.”
“I asked our goalkeeping coach Scott Thomson which way he thought Naismith was going to go with the penalty and he just gave a shrug of the shoulders – so I had to make my own decision.”
“As a goalkeeper you try to clue yourself up on what everyone does with penalties but the guys taking them invariably know you’ve done that and tend to mix it up.”
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