There’s not much light at the end of the tunnel for Dundee United fans right now.
Things are serious.
And the players need to accept they are already in a relegation battle.
It’s only October, but that’s the mentality the Tangerines have to adopt in this situation.
They’ve got to fight like their lives depend on it.
And Saturday’s defeat at home to St Johnstone showed – again – that just isn’t happening.
After this start, Dundee United’s only aim between now and January should be to make sure they are not bottom of the league.
That’s the stage we’re at. Nobody in tangerine should be kidding themselves.
Must-win
The game at the weekend was in the must-win category for me.
Because if they can’t get three points against a bottom six team at home, where are they going to get points from?
Saints, to their credit, have improved from last season.
United certainly haven’t, despite their summer outlay.
The warning signs were there in pre-season where United were poor.
AZ at home showed what this United team can do but we’ve seen nothing more like that.
New manager bounce?
Liam Fox got a reaction during his interim spell in charge.
Has he already used up his new manager bounce, though?
That’s the worry.
It’s clear there are still big issues to sort out at Tannadice.
Fox had that initial impact but it’s already faded – that tells me there were more problems than just a manager behind the scenes.
That’s Fox’s task now until January – identify the main issues and try to solve them.
Detached
They have Aberdeen at home next, a Dons side who won 5-1 at the weekend, and then a Hibs side who are even higher in the league table after that.
Another reason why St Johnstone on Saturday was such a big game.
Lose the next two and they could very well find themselves detached at the bottom.
When a team is 10 games in and have barely any wins behind them, seeing a team more than just one victory ahead suddenly becomes a wider and wider gap to bridge.
We’ve seen it so often with teams who fall behind.
United themselves only have to look back a few seasons to see that.
Warning signs
We’re not at the stage where alarms bells are ringing loudly.
Warning signs are there, though. United need to take note and do something about it.
Starting with the players – we need to see some fight.
The fans have been suffering for a while now.
Season ticket sales in the summer says they expected far more than this.
But even when things were going well last season in finishing fourth, there were plenty not satisfied with performances.
Now most are completely fed up.
Fans at least expect their team to work for each other, do the dirty work and defend properly.
There’s none of that right now.
That has to change or they’ll be deep in a relegation battle at the foot of the table.
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