Comment: Dundee United can’t afford not to sign commanding central defender

Commanding central defenders, just like money, don’t grow on trees.

Dundee United need to find a new one, though, and it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

No one knows this more than manager Ray McKinnon, who has been working long hours trying to get the leader he needs for his backline.

There appears to be nothing suitable available in Scotland so the search has widened to the Netherlands and elsewhere.

McKinnon has his targets but the players he would like to get have other options that would have to be closed down before they would consider United.

Oh what the fans would give for a time machine to return to July 2009 and bring Andy Webster back with them.

For while there were several lessons to come out of the defeat to Dumbarton the greatest of all was that the central defence needs strengthened.

I know that, the fans know that, the players know that and McKinnon certainly knows that.

Last season the inability to get a good enough goalkeeper dogged them until the day they dropped out of the Premiership.

They can’t leave themselves short again and that is why the need to sign a central defender eclipses everything else at Tannadice just now.