DUFC 2 LFC 3

United snatched defeat from the jaws of victory last night and our promotion chances are hanging by a thread after the Premiership promotion play-off match against Livingston last night.

I am still a little shell-shocked to be honest. After a crazy opening where both teams scored in the first three minutes, we then looked extremely comfortable after taking the lead and it looked like if anyone was going to score again then it was going to be us. And then, incredibly, we blew it.

I've rarely seen a game change as dramatically on a substitution as last night. The crowd were up for it, the players were up for it, and we were doing well. Then Laszlo in his infinite wisdom decided to remove King (who in truth needed replacing) and decided to bring on the utter donkey that is Lyng.

As soon as people saw him getting ready the mood changed. The low murmerings started. The positivity drained away. Then the carthorse ran on the park as Livi prepared to take a throw. And the United players decided to just stand still and not bother playing anymore as Livi took the throw, knocked it forward and their forward ran through and scored.

An instant impact.

And that summed up our defending. Each goal was a gift for Livi, none moreso than the third where Murdoch, a central midfielder-cum-rightback-cum-centrehalf, decided to dawdle on the ball, was robbed and they ran through to score. Horrendous and entirely typical of this United team.

Going back to Lyng, it's incredible that he was brought on when he was. United were on the front foot and the correct substitution would have been McMullan on for his pace. They would have left space in behind. However Csaba has to try to justify his signing and brought on the imposter. It sent entirely the wrong message and the boy didn't kick the ball. In fact the United players weren't passing to him because they recognise what a dumpling he is.

If you thought it was farcical up to then though, well we weren't finished there. Willo Flood, on a booking, was blatantly fouled and then tried to bounce up and take a quick freekick. The Livi player who kicked him tried to slow it down, so Willo gave him a hard shove that knocked him over. As the referee pulled out a second yellow, Flood decided to berate the ref, the player he knocked over, his teammate, the Livi fans, the United fans, the United bench and then, to top it all off, he berated the BT cameraman and shoved his camera away.

And some United fans applauded him down the tunnel.

It would be easy for me to show anger at Livingston. They tried to kick us off the park, they play a horrendous game of hoofball and they definitely should have had a man sent off after 20 minutes. But the reality is that this defeat was entirely our fault.

It's hard to see any way back now, particularly given our awful away form. It looks like another season in the Championship for us, and I'm not at all surprised.

Dreadful.