SIMON MURRAY, the Dundee United forward, admitted the team’s recent form has been poor but insisted promotion via the play-offs would still qualify as a success this season. Ray McKinnon’s side went down 3-2 to St Mirren on Wednesday night, a result that leaves them in fourth place in the Championship and 10 points behind league leaders Hibernian.

Automatic promotion now looks a big ask for a United side who have now won only one of their last nine league games but Murray felt that all that matters is getting back to the top flight, regardless of how that is achieved. With United also set to face St Mirren again in next weekend’s Irn-Bru Cup final, the feeling around Tannadice is this can still turn this into a memorable season.

“The run we have been on has been tough to say the least but it’s our job to pick ourselves up, starting with getting three points on Saturday against Raith Rovers,” admitted Murray.

“We haven’t had too many clean sheets in the run we have been on but it’s about defending as a team. But we’re still in the play-off mix. We want to aim as high as we can so if it’s going to be second then we have to make sure it’s second but the league is still not over.

“I know the gap is 10 points but anything can happen so we need to keep working as hard as we can. If we can’t win the league then we have to finish as high as possible.

“A win on Saturday would do us the world of good and it could give us momentum. We then play St Mirren again in the Irn Bru Cup Final and we’ll be going there to win that. Winning that trophy could be the platform for us in the remaining league games.

“Our objective at the start of the season was to get promoted so if we go up through the play-offs then everyone will be happy. If we can claim a trophy along the way then that’s a bonus. We want to win everything we can.”

Tony Andreu’s double was the highlight of an otherwise under-par United performance and Murray admitted the rest of the team need to step up.

“The way we started against St Mirren we probably didn’t deserve to get anything out of it. It was really disappointing because we had trained well and we thought we were going to go there and put on a good performance but it wasn’t good enough.

“We shot ourselves in the foot by losing the early goal. It killed us and you are always chasing when you are down 1-0 so it wasn’t the best of starts. They had had a few good results recently and they were hungry so we knew it wouldn’t be an easy game, but overall it was disappointing.

“Tony is obviously a quality player and he can pop up and score a goal at any time. But we need more than one player. We need to pick ourselves up and go again on Saturday and start picking up wins.”