Thousands of supporters made the trip to Inverness last weekend to watch a miserable Dundee United performance, which resulted in the club crashing out of the cup 1-0 to Caley Thistle.
A solitary strike from Russell Duncan in the 16th minute took Charlie Christies side into the next round of the Scottish Cup, where they will meet Celtic – also in Inverness.
However, Dundee United supporters still tried to make the most of their Scottish Cup afternoon and were partying inside the Caledonian Stadium.
Although, Craig Levein is sorry that his side were unable to give the traveling Arabs another Cup weekend to look forward to this season.
Out of both cup competitions, Dundee United now only have the remainder of the SPL season to concentrate on, but Levein has promised that under his leadership the club will return to making a serious challenge for silverware over the forthcoming campaigns.
“The Dundee United fans had clearly been in the pub since opening time in Inverness – and I’m sorry we sent them back to the bar to drown their sorrows after our Scottish Cup exit,” apologised Levein in his weekly column for the Daily Record.
“It was a terrific turnout of visiting fans, especially those doing the conga up and down the stairs of Caley Thistle’s stadium during our fourth round tie at the weekend.”
“It proved once again the cup competition has a different feel to the SPL and its such a shame we wont be around for the quarter-finals.”
“However, I can assure the supporters we’ll get better in the weeks and months ahead, because challenging for silverware at this club in cup competitions should be a realistic goal.”
Craig Levein has been highly critical of his backline since the start of the year, with the defence losing an embarrassing 11 goals in the first 3 matches of 2007.
Levein was encouraged by the performances of defenders like Lee Wilkie and Sean Dillon against Caley Thistle and has since praised them for how well they played in Inverness.
However, it was the attacking/creative players that received the manager’s criticism following the 1-0 defeat to Caley.
“Its not just the defensive side of football that needs attention. We’ve also got to look to create more opportunities and it was an aspect of the game in which we didn’t do especially well at Inverness, particularly in the first half,” admitted Levein.
“I hope and I’m confident that on a better day those players will shine for the club – and our fans will be dancing together again soon.”
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“Dundee United fans had clearly been in the pub since opening time in Inverness” – Levein knows us so well….hic!
congas inside the stadium, how pathetic
the whole team should have got critism after that performance, not just the attacking players
Why? Do you blame Stillie for the defeat, because he only had 2 or 3 saves to make in the whole game? If thats true, then the defence must have done quite a good job to limit Caley to 2 or 3 long range efforts on goal.