This was a very opportune moment for Dundee United to discover a much-needed cure for their travel sickness.
Winless in the league on the road since a win away to Hibernian in October, they dug deep to come from behind to defeat St Mirren and move into fourth place.
The winning goal arrived six minutes into injury time after Saints had seen goalkeeper Jak Alnwick sent off for crashing into striker Tony Watt outside his penalty box just minutes earlier.
Marc McNulty was the man to get it, the striker latching on to a dropping ball after United had struck the crossbar for the third time in the second half.
“I felt this was a must-win game for both teams because of the way the fixtures were landing elsewhere today,” Thomas Courts, the United manager, said. “And that’s why we were determined to push on and get the victory in the end.
Advertisement
“What a time and what a moment it was to score. And it’s a huge opportunity for us to go on to finish the season strongly. We’ve only been beaten twice in about 10 or 11 games so we’ve been pretty resolute. But at this stage of the season three points are pretty significant.
“The first 45 minutes today was probably up there with the worst in my tenure. The timing and the manner of the St Mirren goal rocked us a little bit. It dented our confidence and we couldn’t get any rhythm.
“In the second 45 minutes we just tried to simplify it for the players. We made a couple of changes that naturally helped us and once we got back to level terms I felt there was only going to be one team that was going to go on to win the match.”
St Mirren, in contrast, were poor throughout the second period, in stark contrast to the first half when they took an early lead through Jay Henderson.
Instead of pushing on, though, they crumbled after the break.
Advertisement
The sending-off of Alnwick didn’t help their cause but manager Stephen Robinson was honest enough to admit it wasn’t pivotal to the outcome.
“I didn’t think we deserved anything,” he admitted. “We didn’t pass the ball well enough in the second half when United started turning us. We didn’t defend well enough and were taking touches when we shouldn’t have been.
“I think it was fear. We didn’t play or pass the ball, so if you’re not going to do that you’re going to play the next 47 minutes defending and we didn’t defend well enough when we needed to.
“I haven’t seen the sending-off again but I’ve been told it’s a red card. That’s not why we lost the game, we didn’t perform well enough. We’re very lucky we’ve
still got two games where we’re a point off top six and three off fourth place, so it’s very much still to play for, but it certainly needs to be better than that.”
Star man: Dylan Levitt (Dundee United).
St Mirren (4-2-3-1): J Alnwick 5 — M Fraser 5, J Shaughnessy 5, C Dunne 5, R Tait 6 — A Power 5 (E Erhahon 82min), A Gogic 6 — J Henderson 7 (C McCarthy 66, 5), C Ronan 6, G Kiltie 5 (A Greive 66, 5 (D Lyness 90); E Brophy 6 (C Main 82).
Sent off Alnwick 88
Dundee United (4-4-2): B Siegrist 6 — L Smith 6, R Edwards 7, C Mulgrew 6, S McMann 5 (R Graham 46, 5) — M Thomson 5 (N Clark 46, 5), D Levitt 7, C Butcher 6, I Niskanen 6 — M McNulty 7, T Watt 6. Booked McMann, R Edwards
Referee N Walsh. Attendance 5,710