Brebner ensures perfect week

With the 90th minute having come and gone, Stevie Crawford received the ball on the left touchline midway inside the Hearts half. He glanced up to see Grant Brebner surging forward from deep and laid a neat pass into his teammate’s path. The midfielder took it in his stride, opened up his body and lifted a curling shot over the head of Craig Gordon and into the top corner. And a roar of relief rose high into the air, piercing the grey sky overhead.

“It was great for us to score so late in the game because it’s happened against us often enough this season,” said Chisholm, United’s caretaker manager. “We lost late goals at Easter Road and against Celtic here. These things have been going against us, but now the boys have turned it around.”

Under Chisholm, this United team have uncovered the character and desire they need to scramble clear of relegation. There were times when Hearts outpassed and outplayed them, but it was the home side who took the lead twice. And so it was United who climbed another step away from the bottom of the Premierleague. Now their next fixture is on Saturday at home to Livingston, one point behind them in the league, another fixture tense with meaning.

“Every game will be pressurised now,” added Brebner. “That’s what happens when you’re staring relegation in the face. But we’ve reached the Scottish Cup final, we’re into Europe, we beat Rangers at Ibrox and now we’ve beaten Hearts. This has been an important week.”

United have switched to playing three at the back in recent weeks, a formation that provides more density in midfield, and the team’s self-belief has solidified in response. It was the two wing-backs who combined on 37 minutes as this game finally emerged from its shell. Mark Wilson swung a crossfield pass to the opposite flank that floated over the head of Andy Webster and, as Jason Thomson, the Hearts full-back, tried to intercept, he slipped. The ball arrived at the feet of Barry Robson, who scurried into the box before lashing a left-foot shot past Gordon.

Chisholm felt his players looked lethargic in the first half, as though the efforts of the past eight days had taken their toll, and the lead only lasted two minutes. With Dennis Wyness often dropping deep, and therefore often dropping out of the game entirely, Lee Miller cut a lone figure up front. But the visitors found the penetration their play had lacked when Jamie McAllister swerved in a cross and Miller met the ball with a powerful header that veered past Bullock.

Saulius Mikoliunas was returning for Hearts after his six-game ban for barging into Andy Davis, the assistant referee, during the game against Rangers last month and, although he showed some neat touches, he faded as the game wore on. “You could see he’s not match-fit, but he can always give you something,” reasoned his manager, John Robertson. Yet it was the Hearts defenders’ inability to clear their lines that led to Brebner’s goal.

His strike came after a five-minute period of United pressure that began with a Robson corner which Kenneth headed against the crossbar. “People have to stand up to be counted. It’s not players who lose their jobs with mistakes, it’s managers and coaches,” added Robertson tersely. “Mistakes have killed us. We’re losing far too many soft goals.”

Dundee United are under pressure, but maybe Robertson is feeling the strain, too.

STAR MAN: Grant Brebner (Dundee United)

Player ratings. Dundee United: Bullock 6, Kenneth 7, Ritchie 7, Archibald 6, Wilson 8, Brebner 8, Kerr 7, Duff 6 (Samuel 78min, 5), Robson 7, Scotland 5 (Crawford 45min, 6), McIntyre 6

Hearts: Gordon 6, Thomson 5, Pressley 6, Webster 6, McAllister 6, Mikoliunas 6, MacFarlane 7, Kizys 7 (Stewart 60min, 6), Hamill 7, Miller 7, Wyness 5 (Burchill 76min, 6)

Booked: Archibald 26, McAllister 56,

Ritchie 76

Referee: A Freeland

Attendance: 7,704

Taken from timesonline.co.uk