Part of Thursday’s wrong having been instantly righted with the SFA’s appeals procedure ensuring that Simon Murray will be available for tomorrow’s Premiership play-off decider, Dundee United look set to have an advantage in terms of first choice personnel.
They may be without Wato Kuate, whose aggression towards senior players and petulance when he was consequently substituted look to have ended the Cameroons-born, Portuguese midfielder’s brief spell at the club.
However they do not have the sort of problems their opponents do with Hamilton’s midfield enforcer Darian Mackinnon suspended, while skipper Massimo Donati (groin) and winger Dougie Imrie (ribs) were both rendered close to immobile in the closing stages of Thursday’s first leg.
Those injuries minimised their opportunity to capitalise on Murray’s ill fortune when he was shown a second yellow card for diving, TV replays demonstrating that the striker had clearly been fouled by Hamilton defender Scott McMann. It consequently could and probably should have been an even worse situation that was confronting Accies, but veteran United defender Sean Dillon was philosophical in assessing the outcome of the first tie.
“I wouldn’t got down the road of slaughtering the officials. These things happen,” he observed.
“It’s a tough one to take from our point of view because we lost a player and a chance to score a goal from a penalty if you look back on it, but we have to review the whole game.
“I’ll always try to take the positive from things, so I suppose when we look at it we’ll feel that hasn’t gone for us, but we had chances in the game, so had they. It was a bit of an up and down game, a bit hectic at times and there’s another big game to go on Sunday.”
He reckons Murray - whose appeal against that second yellow card automatically meant he would be available, given that his hearing cannot take place until next week and should, in any case, be a formality in his favour – will be eager to prove a point, but no more than usual.
“Simon’s always fired up,” said Dillon.
“I’ve no doubt Simon will be ready to go.”
The man who was, earlier this year, accorded an extremely rare honour in the modern game when a testimonial match was played to honour his decade at Tannadice, meanwhile expressed some empathy for Duate while seeming to recognise that the youngster has left manager Ray McKinnon little choice but to omit him from his plans.
“He’s probably a little bit upset with how he played and emotion’s probably got the better of him a little bit, but these things happen,” said the Irishman.
“He’s a young boy. I don’t agree with it. I didn’t like what was done and I’m not saying it’s OK to do that, no way, but emotions are high and we’ll see what happens in the morning.
“I’m not backing up what he did by no means. No matter how bad you are you go over and wish your team-mate the best of luck coming on for you, whether it’s after 80 minutes or after 20 minutes. I’ve had it myself getting taken off before half-time in a game. You’re angry, you’re upset, you’re embarrassed, but you can’t do that.”
As for the rest of them, Dillon reckoned they are simply glad to still have matters in their own hands.
"At Christmas time you’re not getting too far ahead of yourself but obviously you’re in a good position and pushing and the way things went after that weren’t too good, but we’re one game away from getting promotion and please God we’ll do it," he said.
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