Dundee United may have fallen short of their targeted three points from their opening fixture at New Love Street on Saturday, but defender Sean Dillon revealed the determination in the camp to be up to the mark by the time they play AEK Athens in their Europa League play-off at Tannadice on Thursday.
Certainly, it was Saints that hit the ground running as new boss Danny Lennon’s lads fought tooth and nail and knocked Peter Houston’s side out of their stride in the opening third of the game.
But before the interval the Tangerines side had begun to stamp their authority on proceedings.
However, well on top after the break, they failed to make it count, lost a goal and ended up salvaging a point with a goal two minutes from time.
Dillon admitted, “Saints definitely started the better team and it took us a while to get going, but by the latter stages of the first half we had got into our stride.
“I thought we dominated the second half and there were a lot of near things round their goal. The frustrating thing was that we didn’t take them.
“However, having gone behind, as usual the lads showed tremendous spirit and that was rewarded by Jon getting the equaliser.”
The genial Dubliner accepts that after winning the Scottish Cup and finishing third, other teams will be gunning for them.
“After last season, we know a lot is expected of us and teams will see beating us as taking a real scalp, but that is something we will just have to get used to. Besides, we expect a lot ourselves and desperately want to emulate or even improve on last season’s achievements.”
That said, he accepts there is room for improvement.
“Nobody needs to tell us we weren’t at our best and we know we need to raise our game, especially with the AEK Athens game only a few days away.
“To be honest, we weren’t as sharp as we can be and didn’t pass the ball as crisply as we can, but we’ll be working hard to rectify that by the time we meet the Greeks.”
Although United were under pressure early on, with Paul McGowan on loan from Celtic causing all sorts of problems in the first half, Saints rarely threatened to score.
Indeed, other than Dusan Pernis cutting out a couple of crosses, the United keeper was rarely called into action.
The best chance of the first half fell to United with ex-Tannadice keeper Paul Gallacher doing well to keep out a downward header from Garry Kenneth.
The portents for the second half were set as United ended the half in control. However, despite considerable pressure, with Craig Conway the source of most of United’s threat, chance after chance went by-a fact that Dillon acknowledged.
“Craig was instrumental in our success last season and sent over a string of great crosses, but it was just one of those days when we didn’t capitalise on the many chances we created. “Because he has been playing so well, there has been speculation over his future, but as the transfer deadline draws ever closer you can’t rule out someone coming in for him, because he is that good a player.
“If Craig goes, he’ll go with everyone’s best wishes for the massive contribution he has made-though from a purely selfish point of view I’d rather he stayed.”
Ironically, Saints scored when they were really under the cosh. In a rare foray upfield they won a corner which was taken by former Tangerine Steven Robb.
Newly-appointed skipper Jon Daly, back helping his defence, cleared the ball but only to Sean Lynch whose shot from the edge of the box wrong footed Pernis.
Making that even more frustrating to the 1307 Arabs who almost filled the stand behind the goal was the denial of two penalty claims shortly before going behind.
First Goodwillie appeared to be bundled over in the box, but if that might have been of the softish variety the push by David van Zanten on Jon Daly looked in the stonewall category-but referee Brain Winter was unimpressed.
However, justice was served in the last minute when Jure Travner, on loan from Watford, failed to clear a cross and the ball fell to Daly who gleefully slotted home a deserved leveller.