EVERY WORD | JIM GOODWIN PREVIEWS RETURN TO TANNADICE

Dundee United Manager Jim Goodwin spoke to the broadcast media in St Andrews to preview tomorrow's William Hill Premiership battle with St Mirren.

The boss discussed last week's clash at Ibrox, Sam Dalby, St Mirren's upturn in form and Ross Graham's potential return.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF A POINT AT IBROX

As far as we're concerned, it's just another point on the board. A lot is always made when Celtic or Rangers drop points. The tendency from you guys in the media seems to be more talking about how bad they were on the day as opposed to how good the opposition was.

We felt that the game plan was good on the day - we played really well in the first half. In the second half, we rode our luck at times, there's no doubt about that. We had to defend well, putting our bodies on the line and Jack Walton made two or three really good saves to make sure that we came away from the game with something. 

We aren’t getting carried away after it. We just recognise the effort, commitment and hard work that went into ensuring that we get the result. We'd have been huge underdogs before the game so to come away with a really important point was very pleasing. 

ON SUCCESSFULLY FRUSTRATING THE HOME CROWD

That was the game plan. I think it's the same for every other manager in the league when you go and play Celtic and Rangers. I certainly wasn't trying to be disrespectful by any means to Philippe Clement or the Rangers players.

Some of them have been there long enough now to know what opposition teams are going to do. You try and get lots of men behind the ball then try and hit them on the counterattack and get that first goal. 

If you do, then you know because of the level of expectation that the fans put on them, there's going to be pressure. The game plan almost worked perfectly apart from when we conceded that equaliser later on!

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF SAM DALBY’S FORM

It's always important for your strikers to be scoring goals.

We're very lucky here at the club that we've got three really good strikers in Louis Moult, Jort van der Sande and Sam Dalby, who’s grabbing the headlines at the moment. 

You never want to be relying too heavily on any one individual - that's probably the thing that's pleased me the most throughout the season - there's been a number of different goal scorers week-to-week. Defensively we've also been solid. Jack Walton has been called upon to make some big saves.

Sam is going through a little bit of a purple patch at the moment and long may that continue. 

ON THE POTENTIAL OF BRINGING DALBY BACK ON A PERMANENT DEAL

Sam and his agent know what we think of him here. That's why we tried so hard in the summer to bring him to the club - we sold it to him on the premise that we believed his game was suited to the Scottish Premiership.

He made a big commitment as well to travel so far north. It showed the desire he had to play regular first-team football in the top league and I think it's working well for all parties at the moment.

It's too early at this stage for us to be talking about contract talks with players. I think we need to get into the New Year, see where we are after the busy festive period and then we can sit down and start having some serious discussions. 

ON ROSS GRAHAM’S AVAILABILITY FOR THIS WEEKEND’S MATCH

Yeah, he is thankfully. He joined back in with the group this week and has had no setbacks. If that continues into tomorrow then he'll be a part of the squad on Saturday.

Unfortunately, we've still got some key players out such as Ross Docherty, Craig Sibbald and Kristijan Trapanovski. This game at the weekend will come too soon for those guys. 

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ROSS GRAHAM’S RETURN

It's really important because we've only had the three centre-halves in the squad of late with Emmanuel Adegboyega, Declan Gallagher and Kevin Holt. Vicko Ševelj can play in that position as well if needed but he's been a really important player for us at the moment in the middle of the park. 

We've managed to get away with it but we have been really unfortunate in recent weeks with the amount of injuries that we've had to some key players.

Louis Moult is not long back in the group as well. It's important that we try and keep everybody fresh and healthy. We're coming into a busy schedule over the festive period where we've got seven games in the space of 21 days.

It's important that we go into that period with a clean bill of health and that will give us the best opportunity to take some points.

ON ST MIRREN’S RECENT UPTURN IN FORTUNES

I have to give credit to Stephen Robinson and his players. They've turned things around with three wins in their last four matches.

It just shows you how difficult the league can be at times - St Mirren hadn't changed a great deal from last season, similar group of players, the same message from Stephen, no doubt, but just weren't quite getting the break of the ball. Fine margins in a lot of the games had cost him.

He's made a slight tweak to the system, formation and personnel. He's reaped the rewards for that in the last four games. If you put a good run together in the space of four or five weeks, all of a sudden you can catapult yourself up the league like St Mirren have done. They're now back in contention for those top six places. 

I look at Hearts and Hibs as well and I think both those teams are capable of going on good runs similar to what St Mirren are doing at the moment. Given the quality of player in both those teams, you wouldn't be surprised to see that happening.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTINUING OUR OWN RUN OF FORM

My message to the players has been for as good a run as we've been on, it can all change very quickly if you drop standards and if you take your eye off the ball. 

We must continue to work hard in training, show good discipline during the games and not take anything for granted. Yes, it's been a good start, but that's all it's been - We’re not even halfway through the season yet.

ON SEEING FAMILIAR FACES 

My most enjoyable time as a player was with St Mirren. It’s the longest I've ever spent at any club. I've got some great memories and made some really good friends who are still there. It's always nice to catch up with them and see some familiar faces.

Our record so far this season against St Mirren has been very good. We had a victory in the cup at Tannadice and then beat them in Paisley in the last league game. We're hoping to continue that form, but I'm pretty sure Stephen Robinson and his men will be looking for some revenge off the back of that.

We have to respect them and we expect a difficult game. We'll be going into it with a positive mindset and setting up to try and win the game. 

ON TAKING STOCK AFTER THE FIRST FEW MONTHS OF THE SEASON

In my position as a manager, and I'm pretty sure every other manager out there is the same, you tend not to dwell on the last game too much and you don't get caught up in recent results.

You quickly move on to the next game and that's how it's always been. Win, lose or draw, we've analysed games, watched them back and then put them behind us. We try and take learnings from every game, but at the same time the next match is always the most important one and that's St Mirren on Saturday.

I'm delighted with the group as a whole, and delighted with the staff. I think we've made great progress in a short period of time. But as I said in answer to the previous question, it's just important that we make sure we maintain those high standards, don't get carried away, and don't start thinking too far ahead of ourselves either.

There's still a hell of a lot of football to be played and I think once we come into the middle of January, when we get the next nine games or ten games out of the way, then you'll have a fair reflection of what the league looks like. 

ON THE PLAYERS COMING TO THE END OF THEIR CONTRACTS 

I'm delighted with the recruitment that we did in the summer. I think we worked really hard on that from last January right up until the summer to identify the targets that we did. All those players that joined in the summer made a real positive impact.

We've got players coming to the end of their contract but it's too early to be entering into those discussions at the moment. My message to those players is to keep performing, keep doing well, and make sure we keep picking up the results. That’ll put them in a really strong position when those conversations do start. 

We'll be no different from most other teams in the league where you're trying to accumulate enough points to make sure that we've retained our Premiership status for next season. Then, in January, if we feel like we've achieved that, we can maybe start having those conversations about what the future holds for some of those players you mentioned.