Dundee United club captain Sean Dillon has urged Nadir Ciftci to “stick in” and not let frustration get the better of him.
Things weren’t going right for the talented Turk or indeed the rest of the team as they struggled to break down a decent Partick Thistle side at Tannadice on Saturday.
Just like at Kilmarnock a fortnight earlier, Ciftci was letting his feelings show after being tackled, when moves didn’t come off or shots were blocked.
However, just as the match seemed destined to finish goalless, a deflected Dillon pass sent Ciftci clear on goal.
As he was about to pull the trigger from inside the box he was fouled by Thistle defender Danny Seabourne, who was subsequently ordered off for denying the United man a goalscoring opportunity.
Rather than feel sorry for himself, Ciftci got up off the floor then fired home a perfect penalty to secure three points for his team to keep them just one behind Premiership pacesetters Hamilton Accies.
For Dillon, there was a lesson in all that for his team-mate.
The Irishman said: “It was great for Nadir, coming up with something like that. It was probably very frustrating for him because we as a team didn’t play particularly well.
“He maybe didn’t get the service he would have liked and maybe he didn’t get the service we would have liked to have given him.
“But it’s important that he sticks in the way everybody else does.
“You never know what can happen and a couple of times since he joined us he has come up with the goods late on in a game.
“He is a fantastic player we all know that it’s just sometimes he gets a little frustrated.
“The bottom line from our point of view is that we can’t get frustrated.”
The captain added: “The main thing about Nadir is that he persisted, stuck in and thankfully he came up with the goods when he got the chance.
“It was a pressure situation with the penalty and he deserves a lot of credit for scoring like that.”