Same Players Who Did Well Against Celtic Last Time

Dundee United made several changes to the starting line-up for the match against Celtic at Tannadice this weekend.

After a poor defensive performance against Hamilton in the 3-1 defeat last week, it wasn`t a surprise that Levein had a reshuffle at the back, as both Darren Dods and Sean Dillon were dropped.

Instead, Garry Kenneth came back into the centre of defence alongside Lee Wilkie, while Michael Kovacevic started in the right back position.

Prince Buaben was also dropped to the bench, in favour of attacking midfielder David Robertson, but Craig Levein admitted some of the changes were also tactical ones.

“I made changes to the team for 2 reasons,” admitted Levein to Setanta.

“Firstly because of the performance on Monday night and secondly because the individuals played have well against the same Celtic players.”

Before the match Levein admitted that Garry Kenneth was a better passer of the ball that Darren Dodds and that Kovacevic was better 1-on-1 than Sean Dillon.

With Kovacevic up against last seasons player-of-the-year, Aiden McGeady, it was probably a good decision to match him up against the pacey Ireland international.

In the midfield, Levein thought Buaben had “gone off the boil” in recent matches, preferring to go with David Robertson, because the midfielder was more likely to get into the Celtic penalty box and create chances.

Meanwhile, Fran Sandaza remained on the bench despite playing well when coming on in the later stages against Hamilton, but what a difference Sandaza made when coming on against Celtic by scoring a 79th minute equaliser.