Dundee United hopeful over Mario Bilate injury

The striker had his first season at Tannadice ruined by injury. Picture: SNS

Bilate, who missed most of his first season at Tannadice with hamstring injuries, went off midway through United’s opening Ladbrokes Premiership defeat by Aberdeen after the back of his leg tightened up.

But his absence could be restricted to United’s trip to Motherwell on Saturday.

More concerning is the knee injury which has kept Paton on the sidelines with Callum Morris and Ryan Dow.

Assistant manager Simon Donnelly said: “Dow and Morris are still a couple of weeks away. Pates is possibly going to have to get an op on his knee. He will need to see a specialist again so it might be a bit longer for him.

“Mario’s struggling a wee bit. We hope we have caught that one time at the weekend. With the nature of his injury we didn’t want to take too many risks.

“He was working on the bike on Tuesday and Wednesday so that’s hopefully a sign that we have caught it in time.”

With Bilate likely to miss the Fir Park clash, summer signing Darko Bodul could be set for his first start while Robbie Muirhead and Henri Anier will also come into Jackie McNamara’s thoughts.

Donnelly said: “I think we have plenty of attacking options. Darko is right in there in contention. He is getting stronger every training session. He wasn’t far off when he first came in. He was a week or so behind but he has had some game time.”