Dundee United stormed to the summit of the Premiership table with this ultimately comfortable win over St Mirren.
As expected, United boss Jackie McNamara shuffled his pack following Wednesday night’s marathon League Cup tie at Easter Road with Sean Dillon, Callum Morris, Calum Butcher, Charlie Telfer, Mario Bilate and Nadir Ciftci being drafted into the starting line-up.
While the Hibs match was a thrill-a-minute affair that was far from the case in the first half at Tannadice with the Tangerines and St Mirren largely cancelling one another out.
The Buddies did have a couple of chances firstly in the 18th minute when Mark McAusland headed over from a good position and then five minutes later Adam Drury hit a great strike from the edge of the home box which Rado Cierzniak did well to acrobatically tip for a corner.
It looked certain though that the two sides would head down the tunnel with the scores level but in the 45th minute, the Tangerines finally made the breakthrough.
Ciftci played in Aidan Connolly down the right with his attempted cross deflected off a St Mirren defender into the path of Paul Paton who gleefully fired into the back of Marian Kello’s net.
St Mirren then had an immediate chance to equalise when Jim Goodwin pounced on a Cierzniak fumble but his effort flew over the bar.
The United keeper though came to the rescue in the 53rd minute when he stood big as Drury raced in on his goal to make a vital save to keep United in front.
And they then increased their lead in the 56th minute when a United header was blocked by Kello with the ball falling to Ciftci who kept his cool to slot into the back of the net.
Butcher had a chance to make it three when his perseverance saw him one on one with Kello but the keeper won the duel and saved his shot.
United were now cutting open St Mirren at will with sub Stuart Armstrong going close before the home side finally made it three on 73 minutes.
A move involving Ciftci and Connolly was finished off by the impressive Telfer to make it three and easy for United.