Dundee United boss Ray McKinnon insists that another short trip up the road to Dens holds no fear for him or his players.
The Tangerines topped the Group C table following yesterday’s win on penalties at the same venue with the old foes promptly drawn out of the hat to face one another once more.
And McKinnon is hopeful that his side will be even stronger when they lock horns with the Dark Blues again.
He said: “I’m really pleased. We played some really good football.
“We went in without a recognised striker.
“We had to dig in for parts of the game so it was a really good performance and we are delighted to win the group.
“It was exciting football for the fans and we get to do it all again now. I’d rather it was at Tannadice but there’s nothing to fear coming here.
“Dundee are a good side but we’ve shown we can go out and play.
“We were missing James Keatings, Scotty (Scott McDonald) will have another two weeks of training under him.
“Willo Flood has only played 60 minutes with the kids.
“We’ll get these players back fit and we’ll be a stronger squad coming into it hopefully.”
United only missed one of their five penalties in the shoot-out but McKinnon admitted they had not practised them in the lead up to the cup tie.
He added: “We didn’t practise penalties. We spoke to them about penalties but we just told them to go and do it on the day.
“They can all take a penalty and we wanted to think about winning the game.
“We made up the list of who would take them because you have to see who wants to take pens at that point.
“But all of them stood up to say they’d take them which was positive.”
McKinnon’s opposite number Neil McCann had been in bullish mood before the derby, insisting that his players should embrace their favourite’s tag and go out onto the pitch “with a swagger” against a side from the Championship.
However, the United boss insisted he had paid no heed to his counterpart’s comments.
He said: “I don’t pay attention to what is said. People asked me but it’s about what we do.
“I told my players, we concentrate on how we want to play and don’t get entangled in what others are saying.
“That’s always been my motto.”
McKinnon has been carefully adding to his squad all summer and he revealed his signing business is not over just yet.
He said: “We get the recruitment right and we’re heading in right direction.
“I’d still like a midfielder and we’re working on that right now.
“If we do that we’ve got a chance but we need to be up for it.
“We’re really new. We have nine new players in and they’ve just been thrown together.
“We’ll hopefully get better in the coming weeks when we get everyone back fit.”
