Dundee Utd 0 - 0 St Johnstone: Derby’s tasty recipe is half-baked

“We’ve been absolutely delighted with the response from the players, and I’d be silly not to take the chance to work with this group of players if the chance came along.”

Cleland, like any prospective manager whose CV was recently lodged with the chairman, was surely accentuating the positive, for this was the strangest of games, one of the two proverbial halves.

The first was a Tayside derby without passion, a game without direction; the second was a decent contest that climbed out of second gear almost as soon as the whistle went and was, no matter how badly driven both cars were, at full throttle until the final whistle.

If the skill quotient barely rose above dismal after the break, then at least the effort levels quickly soared. Tackles rained in, 50-50 balls were fiercely contested and a flurry of yellow cards were shown by referee Alan Muir, one of which could have been red had he taken a different view of John Rankin’s flying tackle on Liam Craig.

But for all that, the lack of art and artistry was at times painful, as both managers all but conceded afterwards. On a day made for good football, this match was characterised by misplaced passes, miscontrolled balls and a slew of missed opportunities.

Only in the last ten minutes, when the game became a succession of flowing counterattacks, did this ever resemble a quality game of football. But the fact that the game ended without either goalkeeper having to make a serious save speaks volumes for the entertainment on show. If the final result was no surprise, then at least the home supporters could console themselves with the knowledge that a young Dundee United side created virtually all the chances and had done enough over the piece to suggest that they were the set of players that wanted it the most. Dire against Aberdeen last time out and having conceded three goals in each of their last three games, at least they put in a good shift yesterday.

With Morris central to everything they did, managerless St Johnstone looked content to cruise to a point. Sure they strung passes together prettily enough in midfield but they lacked even the bluntest of cutting edges up front on the rare occasions that the ball reached them. In a sterile first half of football in which both sides looked half-dead from the neck up, United were marginally the better side. It was their Finnish forward on loan from Fulham, Lauri Dalla Valle, who got the first shot on target after just eight minutes when he turned smartly on the left and sent a weak shot at visiting keeper Peter Enckleman.

If the Finn was a constant thorn in St Johnstone’s side, the best United chance of the first-half fell to Barry Douglas, who miscued from two yards out with the goal at his mercy. Only the visiting defender Frazer Wright, whose attempted clearance looped over Enckleman and then the bar, came closer for United.

Nor were the Saints any better at the other end. Marcus Haber and Fran Sandaza have the capacity to be a handful, but yesterday they were decidedly off-colour, even though they and Wright dominated the set-pieces.

The second half, though no more composed, was played with a greater sense of urgency. Within three minutes of the restart Dalla Valle had won a free-kick 30 yards out, only to see Garry Kenneth’s driven shot smack off the crossbar. The Finn should have done better ten yards out after Rankin’s defence-splitting pass, and Barry Douglas sent a header just inches wide after a lovely cross from Keith Watson.

For St Johnstone there was just one glimmer of hope when, five minutes after the restart, Sandaza latched on to Craig’s headed flick from Callum Davidson’s cross only to be crowded out in the box by three United defenders. The only other time the Spaniard got the ball in the box, he took an elaborate dive and a yellow card for simulation.

It was difficult to argue with Peter Houston’s stark summary of the game. “It was back to basics today, with the clean sheet a real positive,” said the Dundee United manager. “I think both sides can play better, but there was no lack of effort.”

Undoubtedly true, but hardly inspiring.