Dundee United boss Mixu Paatelainen has delivered a withering assessment of his players’ attitude and application after another dark day for the Tannadice club.
The Finnish manager, in his second game in charge, described the Tangerines’ efforts against top-of-the-table Celtic as “rubbish with a capital R”.
A double from Kris Commons, one from the spot, and counters from Leigh Griffiths and Dedryck Boyata before a late deflected strike from skipper Scott Brown took the Hoops four points ahead of Aberdeen at the top of the Premiership.
United remain five points adrift of Partick Thistle at the bottom of the table after 12 matches, and Paatelainen made no attempt to hide the scale of the challenge he faces in turning things around.
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The former United striker said: “We were rubbish with a capital R. You can set out your tactics and do whatever you want on the training ground but if you don’t do your basic fundamentals right, everything goes in the rubbish bin.
“And that is what happened today. After that I am not surprised that Dundee United are bottom of the league at the moment because we don’t do things right.
“We made some mistakes last week but I thought we were okay. Today we were horrendous. It was a painful experience.
“The worrying thing is that, for some of our players the message doesn’t go in, no matter how clearly you put it across to them.
“It is not something that we will fix in the next two or three weeks. It is going to be a long autumn and winter for us.”
In another interview for the official club channel ArabZONE, Mixu even had to apologise for swearing as he made his frustration clear.
He said: “This won’t turn easily. We have so much to do, both offensively and defensively.
“We are nowhere near the level we want.”