JOHN RANKIN believes Dundee United need to improve their performances on the road after another way performance that wasn't "up to scratch".
Jackie McNamara's side have been dominant at Tannadice all season but have tended to struggle on their travels of late and were sluggish in Wednesday night's 1-1 draw at St Mirren. The midfielder knows they ought to be doing much better.
"I don't know how many times this season we go away from home, concede a sloppy goal and then need to score two or three to win games," he said. "To be honest it's not on and we have to stop that. We need to get back to basics and if we can keep clean sheets then we'll always create chances to score. That performance the other night was not acceptable.
"Our away form of late hasn't been up to scratch. We lost at St Johnstone and drew at Partick before this, so we need to start picking up wins on the road. Our home form has been pretty good - I think we've only dropped five points all season - but we need to start doing better away from home too and quite quickly. We're creating chances but the other night, when we had a chance to turn the screw, we didn't do enough to go on and win the game. That's disappointing. At home if it goes to 1-1 we're putting pressure on."
Rankin was insistent that transfer speculation, as well as Gary Mackay-Steven's pre-contract agreement with Celtic, could not be used as excuses for the poor away form.
"I don't think the transfer speculation plays any part at all. When you cross the white line it's all about getting three points and unfortunately we never got them the other night. We know that Gaz has signed a pre-contract and will be away in the summer but he's still a Dundee United player and he's looking to see what he can achieve between now and the end of the season.
"It's unfortunate that's come out this stage in the middle of the window as there is always going to be speculation on whether he'll go this month or not. But he's our player and from what we can gather he's going to stay until the end of the season. Hopefully he does and helps us mount a challenge on three fronts."
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