No defence from Houston for United’s poor performance

DUNDEE United manager Peter Houston offered nothing in mitigation of his team’s abject display against Celtic yesterday which saw them fail to create a single clear-cut scoring opportunity in the match.

“It was a really poor performance from us technically,” said Houston after the 1-0 defeat at Tannadice.

“I’ve got no complaints about our work rate, but the first touch of our players was so poor that their second touch had to be a tackle.”

Houston, who last week bemoaned the weather for a frustrating goalless draw again Motherwell at Fir Park, laid the blame for yesterday’s poor show squarely at his players’ feet.

“We are not asking them to do something they can’t do,” he said. “They can use and pass the ball much better than they did today. It’s not like us to play the ball out the park under no pressure.

“We couldn’t even make five or six-yard passes. The players let themselves down and didn’t create anything at all.” Dundee United now sit seventh in the league with a goal difference of -5, which clearly irks the manager.

“The number of goals we were conceding was a concern earlier in the season and we worked on that. We clearly now need to work on the attacking side of our game.”

He added: “Technically it was a really poor performance from us. We let ourselves down and we didn’t create too many chances.

“The other side is, did the boys believe in themselves and I don’t think we did as much as we did at Ibrox recently when we got beat 3-1 but played well. You can handle that.”