Jim Jefferies backs players to shrug off home defeat ahead of Europa League tie as Houston picks out Allan for praise

Hearts drew the away leg 1-1 last week, so a scoreless draw would be enough for them to progress to the play-off round. But Jefferies is thinking more positively about the tie, and is sure a large crowd at Tynecastle will inspire his players.

"Thursday will lift itself," the manager said after a match in which many of his team appeared fatigued by their midweek journey. "We'll be up for it. It will be a different thing altogether. They've gone and done the first part over there. They've kept the tie very much alive and we hope to go and finish it off."

After taking the lead towards half-time, United never quite managed to finish Hearts off, and Jefferies was pleased by the perseverance his team showed as they searched for an equaliser. "I'm disappointed with the result," he said. "I thought a draw would have been a fairer result over the balance of play.

"We were always on the front foot, always putting them under pressure. We weren't that bad today, it was just the result didn't go in our favour. Later in the game we looked a little bit heavy-legged. That's no excuse - I thought we did enough in the first half to warrant a goal, and definitely not be 1-0 down. But their goalkeeper was excellent, and so was their defence."

Jefferies added, however, that his own defence had been less excellent when conceding the goal, explaining that Marius Zaliukas had failed to pick up scorer Jon Daly. "You can't give Jon Daly that space in the box. Nine times out of ten he'll punish you - and he did.

"But Marius has held his hands up and that's all there is to the matter. At this level there's not that much between the two teams and one goal can make all the difference. What disappointed me in the last ten minutes was I thought we were getting enough balls in there from throw-ins, corners and free-kicks and I thought the goalkeeper was taking them too easily. We didn't put him under enough pressure."

One positive for Hearts was the reappearance of Rudi Skacel, who Jefferies thinks is very close to signing the one-year extension of his contract which will keep him at Tynecastle this season. "He came to see me and said he was confident it would be sorted out. That's why I brought him in today."

Dundee United manager Peter Houston had a different analysis of the game, arguing that his team could have had the three points wrapped up in the first half. "I'm delighted with the performance and the result, because you always know you'll get a tough game at Tynecastle," he said. "I felt in the first half we had to survive some pressure from Hearts, who pushed their full-backs forward which caused us a problem. I adjusted the shape of the team a bit and look at the chances we created.

"We could have had a penalty, we've hit the bar with the free-kick, Daly brought out a world-class save from their keeper and we got a goal. When you come to Tynecastle, sometimes you don't make chances like that in 90 minutes."

Houston also praised the performance of midfielder Scott Allan, who enjoyed an exceptional first start for United. "Scotty Allan was unbelievable for us," he added. "Scotty can play in any company as a footballer, but what he has to learn is to do the dirty work as well - and he did that today. We've always said he's a talented player and to come to an arena like Tynecastle and play like that is outstanding.

"In fact, he was noising up Ian Black a wee bit and I told him to let his football do the talking. Black was getting upset with him, but Scotty stuck to his task brilliantly and he won the ‘war' with him."