Paul Dixon believes if Dundee United start converting chances they can take all three points when Cowdenbeath visit Tannadice tonight in the second round of the League Cup group stages.
At Gayfield on Friday night, the Tangerines had to settle for two points, one for drawing over 90 minutes with Arbroath and the other a bonus for coming out on top in a penalty shoot-out.
Dixon is still smarting over not taking all three points from that one and he knows the reasons behind that not being the case aren’t rocket science.
“At Arbroath there were times where we could have been a lot more clinical in front of goal,” said the full-back.
“We had a lot of the ball and got it into the box and we should have won over 90 minutes.
“We made plenty of chances throughout the game to kill them off and we didn’t take them.
“Then we finally did get a good goal that Henri (Anier) finishes really well and at that point, so late on, we should have seen the game out.
“We didn’t because we switched off for a second in injury time and it cost us.
“Their boy (Colin Hamilton) has put the ball over the line with his arm and it should have been chalked off.
“We feel collectively we should have defended the situation better than we did and not let the cross get to him.
“That was disappointing but in total that was maybe only our third game, so it’s still early days.
“We’ll get sharper, we still knew we should have won and we won’t make any excuses for not doing the job.”
Dixon does stress there was plenty to be encouraged by during the opening competitive game and the emphasis in preparing for tonight has been to build on that.
“There were pluses and minuses from the performance and we’ve been speaking about them.
“We’ll take the good into the Cowdenbeath game and try to make sure we don’t repeat the bad.
“We’ll look to create the same number of chances, or even more, at Tannadice and we’ll look to take a few more than we did on Friday.”
And despite that struggle to convert against the Red Lichties, Dixon is confident the players manager Ray McKinnon has recruited over the summer will get among the goals this season.
“The new boys have looked good and Cammy Smith did well when he came on against Arbroath.
“He’s just arrived but I know he’s a good player from watching him play for Aberdeen and, once he gets to know everyone, he will do a very good job for us.
“The other boys that have come in have shown they are good players as well.
“On Friday, Tope (Obadeyi) looked good and was beating his man time after time.
“He put some good balls into the penalty area and he’ll keep doing that.
“It’s up to us to make sure we start getting people on the end of them in the games that lie ahead.”
Dixon is well aware that, like Arbroath, tonight’s opponents will not let United have things all their own way. He knows victory will have to be worked for.
“I thought Arbroath played well and you have to give them credit for that.
“Cowdenbeath will be the same and they made it difficult for Inverness on Saturday.”
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