Dundee United hitting form at right time

There’s no two ways about it, since Christmas Dundee United’s season has not panned out the way they would have liked.

After hitting the top of the Championship with a win over St Mirren to give Arabs the perfect present just hours before Santa was coming down their chimneys, the first months of 2017 were bleak.

League form crashed, there were heavy defeats at the hands of promotion rivals Hibs and Falkirk and, from the dizzy heights of first, Ray McKinnon’s team fell to fourth.

At one stage there were even fears the Tangerines would be dragged into a battle for that final play-off spot.

But for the teams below them having to scramble for points to avoid being sucked into a relegation dogfight, that could well have happened.

And off the pitch, the fans were growing increasingly disgruntled with the current regime, leading to further protests, making it a troubling time to be at Tannadice.

That disenchantment is not going to go away and the sight of injured skipper Sean Dillon lifting the Challenge Cup after a hard-fought final victory over St Mirren last month provided only a brief respite.

In fact, a week later, a disastrous last 10 minutes at Queen of the South, which saw a game that had looked winnable at one stage end in a 4-2 defeat, brought everyone crashing back down to earth.

Over the last month, though, the team has actually started picking up results again. The Palmerston hiccup is the only defeat in the last seven outings and Saturday’s dramatic late win over seemingly-perpetual opponents St Mirren represented a fourth unbeaten game in a row.

And it begs the question — have United hit form at just the right time?

Obviously, manager Ray McKinnon hopes so, as do a loyal support. For all the unhappiness with the board, they remain fiercely loyal to their team meaning the biggest change they want right now is to see United move back up to the Premiership.

As challenging as the route there via play-offs that are so obviously geared in favour of the top-flight team involved is, those recent results have to give hope that can still happen.

Saying so is not pretending everything is as the punters, or the gaffer for that matter, would like it.

The form might be good but performances could be better. As exciting as the weekend five-goal thriller was, for long spells United struggled to play any flowing football.

And they did get a slice of luck with an opening goal that should have been chalked off for a foul.

Particularly at this stage of a campaign, though, it is the results that count and performances take on secondary importance.

For United it might just be a case of timing being everything.

While their results are on the up, their rivals have been showing signs of flagging.

If they lose out in the race for second, Morton will have to be faced three times in eight days early next month, once in the final league game and then over the first play-off tie.

So impressive for much of the season, Jim Duffy’s team have now gone seven games without a win and might just be running out of steam.

Falkirk, meanwhile, have recorded just two wins in their last six outings and the consensus was they were fortunate to get a point when they visited Tannadice a couple of weeks back.

While United are not quite where they’d like to be in terms of those performance levels, the immediate future could be just a little brighter than it appeared only a month or so ago.