Dundee United heading into Tayside derby with confidence, says Tam Courts

Tam Courts insists Dundee United will go into Tuesday’s Tayside derby at Dens Park with a positive mentality despite the late blow against Celtic on Saturday.

The Tannadice side put in a resilient cinch Premiership performance against the Hoops only to lose to a 90th-minute goal by winger Liel Abada.

Courts, however, saw enough at Celtic Park and throughout this season to be confident of a second win of the campaign against their near neighbours, who are second bottom of the table and without a league win in seven.

The United boss said: “Form goes out the window for a derby. There will be a lot of energy on Tuesday night, both teams are playing a lot of football just now, so we’ll just focus on ourselves because we’re in a good place right now.

“We are in a positive frame of mind and excited about going to Dens on Tuesday night.

“We’re in a good run of form and that was a strong enough performance on Saturday to make us feel positive and optimistic going into the derby.

“We can take lots of positives. In a week, we’ve played 120 minutes in the Scottish Cup and won, came from behind last Wednesday to win a big three points and performed admirably on Saturday.

“We have to use the performance as a catalyst for Tuesday night..

“The key thing is to be calm and clear, make sure that they totally understand the game plan so they bring their quality.

“That is something we have consistently tried to do this year. That has served us well in a lot of big games including the derby we won earlier this season at Tannadice.

“There are never any guarantees with these games, but the thing I have been keen to reinforce throughout my tenure at the club is that I’ve got belief in these players and the work that we do and we go to Dens feeling pretty confident, albeit very respectful of the opposition.”