AS if we didn't know it before, Sunday proved beyond doubt that Mixu Paatelainen is a man who likes to call a spade a spade. The only problem is that right now his Dundee United side only seem intent to digging themselves a bigger hole with said garden implement.

With the Tannadice side already five points adrift at the foot of the Ladbrokes Premiership division and in the midst of a grim run of fixtures - their next four ties include Ross County, Aberdeen and St Johnstone in the League, plus a fraught-looking League Cup quarter final at Hibs - the scale of the task facing the Finn seems to be magnifying with each passing day.

United are the case par excellence of a squad who are 'too good to go down', but unless results pick up in the short term they already face the doomsday scenario of becoming detached from the rest of the division so early on in the campaign. No wonder then that Paatelainen went ballistic at his players after a performance at Parkhead on Sunday which had little in the way of redeeming features in either attack or defence, a rant which started with the claim that their showing was "rubbish with a capital R" and ended with him plaintively asking "what is the point of f***king training" if you promptly forget about it all come match day.

"I can’t argue with what the manager said," was the response of an ashen-faced Sean Dillon. "He was right. We had a chat after the game. He obviously wasn’t happy at half-time. And he still wasn’t when the game was finished. We were made aware of how unhappy he was. But look, we are not happy either. We did basic stuff wrong. We had a certain plan coming into the game but the goals we conceded are basic goals."

There is a consensus that United's big problem is having too many young, talented players, who are too nice to get their sleeves rolled up but Dillon doesn't wholly go along with that. "I think it can be an easy get-out sometimes to say we have good, technical players but not much fight in them and stuff," he said. "Everybody is going to have an opinion. I personally wouldn’t go down the road of pushing things away from me and a couple of the older boys to say we’re doing alright and the young lads aren’t. I don’t think that’s fair either. We are all in it together. We just need to continue working on the basics. But it has to change soon.

"We have to believe," he added. "We have got a lot of good guys in the team, a lot of talent. Confidence can be an issue. I wouldn’t dismiss that altogether because we are bottom of the league with one win this season. But we need to keep working. Regardless of whether your confidence is high or not, you shouldn’t be making basic mistakes and giving goals away like that."