DUFC 1 RFC 0

17 months to the day.

It's been a long time to wait to go to the football, but in the end it was worth the wait.

If I'm being entirely honest, I wasn't even that excited to be back. The dire performance last week, coupled with the fact we were playing a much better team, had me less than enthusiastic as I boarded the train in the morning. Yes, it would be nice to be back, but I wasn't particularly looking forward to the match itself and the fact it was a reduced crowd took a bit of the excitement away.

Then the game started, and I realised I had been very wrong not to be enthusiastic. United were full of energy, in a good shape (433!!) and played in a manner that should be the minimum expectation for a game at Tannadice - playing on the front foot, trying to force the game in the opponents half and actually playing some decent football from time to time.

And then we scored. And that's when I realised just how much I'd missed it. A big goal in a big game. Jumping about going daft and sharing it with those around you. You just don't get that in your front room. I'd missed football.

I thought United were excellent on Saturday. I genuinely can't find a negative word to say about the team. Maybe that we could have got more shots away, especially in the first half when we seemed to frequently find ourselves with shooting opportunities on the edge of the box, but those are small criticisms. The way they applied themselves was tremendous and credit to the manager for that.

I thought we were comfortably the better team in the first half. It was actually quite interesting watching the battle for tactical supremacy from the top tier of the George Fox stand. Rangers were doing everything they could to try to get Tavernier away down the right hand side, with Lundstram and Aribo constantly sacrificing themselves to try to pull our defensive trio of Robson, Fuchs and Pawlett out of position to get him away. It didn't work for them. Our trio worked extremely hard to stop it and they did a terrific job.

You could tell how difficult an afternoon Rangers were having by how often they changed formation. I counted four different formations they used in the afternoon and, while they got on top at the start of the second half, they never really threatened our goal in the way you would expect them to. I can remember one save from Benji (that I would expect him to make) but there was no point in the game where I felt a Rangers goal was coming.

It didn't help that some of their other players were stinking too. Kent may as well have not bothered turning up and Morelos and Aribo up top offered very little threat. Even Kamara, who I think is a very good player, looked well off it.

To be fair, I never really felt a United goal was coming until it did. Huge credit to the excellent Jamie Robson for continuing his run after Sporle cut inside, and you can say it was lucky but he had to be there to take advantage of that luck and he was. Tremendous scenes.

A huge result then for us and a big lift for everyone at the club, particularly the manager who very much needed it to take some pressure off him. As I said at the top, hard to find a bad performance in all that but I think particular credit goes to the most handsome centre half pairing of Edwards and Mulgrew who dealt with everything that came in the box, Fuchs who was terrific throughout, not only in shuttling around, closing down and winning the ball back, but also in the way he protected the ball to help get us up the park. Clark worked tirelessly up top, not able to get on the end of any chances but again helped pull us up the park by holding it up, winning headers (and he won a lot of headers against guys much taller than him) and being a thorn in the side of the defenders. But particularly Robson for his all-round performance on top of his goal. He was outstanding on Saturday in what could end up being his last game for the club.

I still have a few issues with the team in games where we'll look to take more control (Ayr away next week for example), particularly with the balance of the midfield and in particular the role of Butcher when we have possession, but those are arguments for later in the week. Today we can enjoy our first three points of the season.

Mon the Terrors