Off-target Johnny Russell left to rue 'worst miss of his life'

The youngster scuffed a shot past the post in the first half as United hit the Poles on the counter-attack.

United also saw David Goodwillie blocked off as he tried to go round the keeper in a one-on-one situation. But they were left sickened with just 15 minutes to go when Wroclaw, who were starting to run out of ideas, netted the only goal of the game through sub Johan Voskamp.

Russell insists United are still firmly in the tie and pledged to have his shooting boots on next week. He said: "It was a shocker. I totally shanked it and I'm gutted. I thought I had scored because I saw them coming to the front post and I just wanted to hit it past them. It's the worst miss of my life and probably the most important because it meant so much.

"We would have loved to have gone back with an away goal and I think we deserved to. We are confident ahead of the second leg, I don't think they caused us too many problems.

"At Tannadice we will have a right go at them and there's no reason we can't win. I thought they were a quality side but with the way they were talking it was like they were going to give us a doing. It's all to play for heading back to Tannadice."

United manager Peter Houston was delighted with his team's performance and tipped them to overcome Slask at Tannadice next week. "Slask got a really lucky break for the goal they scored," he said. "The best two chances of the game came for us. Johnny Russell was through on goal and would normally score. And the same goes for Goodie when he went one-on-one with their keeper.

"They are players who have scored plenty of goals for the club and I'd have expected one of them to score. I won't be too critical of them because on another day they would have hit the net."