Dundee United Are Getting Respect

Before Craig Levein took over as Dundee United manager, opposition sides expected an easy ride when visiting Tannadice Park.

Under Levein things have changed, as Dundee United start to make the home advantage count in both SPL and Cup competitions.

Inverness Caledonian Thistle were the latest club to leave the city without a single point, after goals from Jon Daly and captain Lee Wilkie gave United a deserved 2-1 victory.

Craig Brewsters` Caley Thistle side still managed to give United a late scare thanks to a controversial goal that was chalked offside and a 90th minute own-goal from Wilkie.

However, Levein claims to have learnt from his experiences against Kilmarnock and Hibernian, shoring-up United`s defence against the counter-attacking football which resulted in cruel defeats to the Rugby Park and Easter Road sides.

“Inverness came with the intention that was pretty obvious right from the start, a definite 4-5-1, waiting to try and counter us. That in itself is a mark of respect,”

Levein told the BBC after the match.

Sometimes it`s difficult when the opposition play a certain way for 80minutes or so. We are the team that has got to force the game and do all of the running.”

“All of a sudden they throw bodies up front and there`s a complete change in the way the match pans out. We got caught cold a little bit by them just putting balls in on top of us.”

“It can be the type of game that you can be caught by a sucker punch. It happened to us here against Kilmarnock, the difference is that we’ve learned from that and managed to close out the game today.”

“That is no coincidence, we have just concentrated on making sure we done lose goals and, because of that, its freed up our strikers a little bit. Now it looks like when we get infront, that we are going to win games.”