Before I go discuss Dundee United at all. I’ll start this by saying This.

I think, as fan media, we (as in the people at The Terrace, fellow writers at PureFitbaw, ModernFitba etc.) have a responsibility to paint Scottish Football in the best light possible. Scottish football is much more than just the Old Firm, and the more people talking about every team, from Wick Academy to Berwick Rangers, from Fort William FC to Hibernian FC. Every league and team in this country has merit, and some piece of enjoyment to take from it.

With all that being said. The thought of Dundee United playing another season in the fucking Scottish Championship makes me want to die. Especially after this… frustratingly weird season.

Maybe I should just be thankful for the improvements we’ve made even from where we started. I mean, just look at the difference from the first match of the season:

To our team in the last:

Look at the difference. We’re better in every position that we’ve replaced and even the players who have survived are in better positions that suit them well (Clark being the only exception, but his goalscoring record shuts me up). Neilson has definitely made improvements to the squad and it would be deluded to think otherwise. But it doesn’t feel that simple, does it?

I should probably talk about Laszlo, shouldn’t I?

He’s the definitely the worst manager I’ve ever seen at Dundee United, and I’m sure the United fans older than me will happily make the argument that he’s the worst to ever take charge at the club. And hindsight hasn’t done him any favours either. the 25-mile rule was an overhyped publicity stunt but Martin’s claim that players were being given low contracts with high bonuses to promote a winning mentality while simultaneously offering (allegedly) double the wages Craig Curran would’ve gotten at Ross County and an improved contract to Adam FUCKING Barton was way worse as a least the 25 mile rule was something that was actually happening. His signings were actually not as bad as most think, considering he brought in Rachid Bouhenna and Pavol Safranko (very good) Paul Watson and Nicky Clark (Underrated given they’ve both spent most of the season out of position), and Callum Booth (not as bad as your dad thinks he is) but my god does the bad stick out. Christoph Rabitsch ran like he shat himself, Yannick Loemba seemed to think that playing in a different country didn’t mean a different style of play, Matej Rakovan had the positional sense of Wile E. Coyote dodging an anvil, and Craig Curran shoved a Falkirk player into an advertising board then fucked off to Dundee.

The reality is, Shabba was doomed from the start. His poor signings, results, general demeanour and his press conferences written by James Joyce built up to make the portrait of an unlikeable character to many United fan. It was gonna take a combination of both a good summer transfer window with several impressive signings plus a very good run of games to get the fans on his side again. Instead, he signed Adam Barton, got knocked out of a league cup group with 4 part-time teams and worst of all, lost to Dunfermline. He got sacked after seven games, with a 5-1 home loss to Ross County were it was obvious that the players had completely given up on him. Some achievement, considering that eight of the players in that starting 11 were his signings.

One 2-0 Ayr defeat managed by Laurie Ellis later and Robbie Neilson came in. Considering the other options that were apparently interested in the job (Jim Mcintyre, John Hughes etc.), he was the best man available. I could also point out his previous history of winning the league, but considering Paul Hartley, Derek Adams and Terry Butcher all have 2nd tier titles to their names, I’m hesitant to consider that an achievement.

In his first 6 matches, we won 5, drew 1, scored 10, conceded 4, and kept 3 clean sheets. We were like a brand new team. The shackles that Shabba had held on this team with his boring, defensive play-style had been thrown off. Safranko scored 4 goals in 6, his best run of form all season, and Fraser Aird was competing with him for best player, with 2 goals and 4 assists. McMullan and King were causing opposition defences all kinds of problems and opening up gaps that others would exploit. And out of nowhere, Edgenguele suddenly had an improved run of form, providing a good partnership with Bouhenna.

The biggest during that run was without a doubt the away victory to Ross County. With us 7 points behind Ayr and 5 behind The Staggies, We needed to make up ground immediately. Somehow, with Paul Watson at right back and Stewart Murdoch at left back, we got the early goal and held on to get the three points. We also got Stuart Kettlewell to accuse us of lacking class, and pissing people off is something that I am well in favour of and should definitely be encouraged more often.

We should’ve pushed on from this. We should’ve kept dominating teams. We should’ve kept this winning run going. Instead. We lost 5-0 at home to Ayr United.

I’ll be honest, I don’t really remember most of that… horror film. I think what sums it up the most was when my flatmate walked in on me lying face first on the ground in living room slumped down from the chair, sadly grunting at any question she asked me.

Our form slumped from then on. 2 wins, 3 draws and an embarrassing 2-1 loss to Alloa Athletic were Neilson was fully blunt and told the press that this squad wasn’t good enough and new players would need to come in. This contradicted what Neilson had said earlier in his tenure, but I would agree with what Alistair Heather said on his Terrace Podcast appearance (only accessible through a paywall), that Neilson was absolutely lying when he said that the squad wasn’t fine and didn’t need “wholesale changes”. Hearts fans will attest that Neilson has a habit of lying to the press.

Before we get to the January transfers, let’s talk about the ownership changes. The Ogren’s purchase of the club was finally announced on the 13th of December, ending the epilogue to the Thompson era that was Mike Martin. Martin, like Laszlo, shouldn’t have been here in the summer. His 9-month tenure as chairman was a pointless waste of time, as every appointment, he made to improve the club has already been seen as not good enough. Easton, Robertson, Sturrock, all gone. And a whole host of new people in new positions have come in since. I’m not gonna pretend I know about the previous careers about Adam Asghar, Andy Goldie, David Byrne etc. and even then I probably don’t have time to talk about them in any great detail. All I’m gonna say is that I can’t really say anything to be concerned about. I know some fans are concerned about Tony Asghar but that to me I can’t see any bigger reason other than weird paranoia because he’s a former agent and a “RANJURZ FAN” which is a bit… yeah.

The winter window opened and Aiden Nesbitt, Cammy Smith, Morgaro Gomis, Ian Harkes, Ross Laidlaw and Charlie Seaman all came in. Maybe I’m alone in this but I thought that Neilson was gonna be done after these signings. These players would be an improvement (except for Gomis, who I never thought would be good on his third return), Aiden Nesbitt had in two sub appearances gotten a penalty and an assist, Cammy Smith was one of the best players in the league in a title-winning team only a season before, and Ian Harkes came to Scotland with a point to prove and had a College Player of the season award to prove his quality. I thought Neilson was finished in the window.

Then we lost 1-0 to Ayr, Neilson snapped, and by the next day, 5 new signings had come in and 5 players had been chucked out on loan. Peter Pawlett, Calum Butcher, Mark Connolly, Mark Reynolds and Osman Sow all signed, while Billy King went on loan to Gillingham, Fraser Aird walked off to Queen of the South, William Edgenguele trotted to Falkirk, Stewart Murdoch was sent to East Fife and Adam Barton was wheelbarrowed to Connah’s Quay Nomads. Surely now we would go onto win enough games to go above Ross County, win the league and get us out the second tier?

Ugh. Well, we were unbeaten in February which was a good start. our 2-1 victories over both Greenock Morton at home and away to St. Mirren in the Scottish Cup was reminiscent of the first few games under Neilson (As in, we dominated the second half, then got tired), and were a good showcase of the new players, Ian Harkes in particular impressed. by the 23rd of February, 4:07pm, United was level on points with Ross County, Cammy Smith putting United 1-0 away at Falkirk while Ross County trailed 2-0 to Partick Thistle at Firhill. by 4:50pm, There was a 5 point gap, as the Staggies roared back to a 4-2 win while Ciaran McKenna pounced on a Benjamin Siegrist mistake to steal a point for the Bairns.

Fan Twitter account @OurDUFC said after this game that the title race was over. They got a lot of stick for that (including by me, though I deleted the tweet for some reason). In hindsight, he was correct. The title race was over that day.

For this reason, March was marked by false hope. Knocked out the Scottish Cup after an awful performance against Inverness, we followed that up with an equally as poor game against Partick Thistle, both games being lost in the final moments only making the mood around the club worse. United played Ross County on Tuesday, who were 11 points ahead of them by this point. But instead of just giving up and giving United fans no chance of even dreaming. They won 1-0. Fuck sake United.

They also won their next two games, beating Alloa 2-1 at home and beating Dunfermline 1-0 away. Next was Queen of the South. We were 2 points behind Ross County by then, granted with 2 more games played, but after this game was The Staggies away, win the next two games and who knows? maybe we could do it. Besides, Queen of the South was on a run of 7 straight defeats, There was no chance of us losing.

Fuck sake.

So then the playoffs. the Semi-Final games against Inverness were absolutely hilarious, purely because of how badly people reacted to some decisions that really were not worth complaining about. Firstly was the Liam Polworth red card were Mark Connolly apparently overreacted to getting kicked in the head (because Chris, a 35-year-old accountant from Drakies, would definitely know how that feels and what the appropriate reaction would be to getting brain your elasticised inside your skull).

Then in the home game, after winning 1-0 away. There was the penalty incident on Brad McKay. Which was definitely a penalty. Yes, I’m biased, but the ball was goal-bound and Brad McKay had his hand in the way, deflection or not that is a penalty. Didn’t stop John Robertson from being sent to the stands, which again, was very funny. The entire controversy was even funnier considering that Inverness is the kind of football team to make DVDs after they beat you once. Osman’s Sow first goal (lol Coll Donaldson) and a great team effort finished off by Pavol Safranko secured the victory and sent United through. United fans were hopeful going into the Final against St. Mirren.

Do I have to talk about these two games? one was boring tense shite and the other was hopeful for about 2 minutes before Mark Connolly did the highland fling and played Danny Mullen clean through on goal. the 210 minutes of football played in the two legs were turgid, battling and shite to watch for the neutral. I watched the second leg with my mate in the pub and I’m pretty sure he got more enjoyment watching me trying to drink my pint with my hand shaking all over the place in fear rather than watching the actual match. The penalties were atrocious but I’m going to single Safranko and Sow as the worst offenders as they’re both meant to be the goal scorers and they produced the two worst penalties of the four. And with that, United was down for another season. Yay.

That’s the review of the season wrapped up. All in All. it’s been pretty shite. But, I do think that it’s important we remember the improvements. The squad is better now than it was at the beginning of the season, and the signings of both Liam Smith, Adrian Spörle, Lawrence Shankland and Deniz Mehmet should be the start of an improvement over what we had in the position. With the current ownership and the set up that Asghar, Brannigan and Neilson are building with Ogren’s funding, we should be in a good position to go and win the league next season.

Can’t wait to see how we fuck it up this time.