JIM GOODWIN | WE KNOW WHAT THIS FIXTURE MEANS TO OUR SUPPORTERS

Dundee United Manager Jim Goodwin previewed our William Hill Premiership clash with Aberdeen on Matchday 26.

The boss gave an insight into his post-mortem of our draw with Kilmarnock, discussed Emmanuel Agyei’s impact in the engine room and stated his desire to extend our unbeaten run against the Dons to six matches.

Watch the full interview below!

ON OUR DRAW WITH KILMARNOCK

I don’t think there's anybody who was at the game and in fact the opposition manager Neil McCann said as much after the game that we deserved to win the game and take all three points but unfortunately we failed to do that because we failed to keep the clean sheet. 

We watched the game back and we analysed it as a group and I think we're all in agreement that we need to defend that situation a whole lot better. There was elements of the game that were very, very good on a difficult surface but sometimes that gets lost in how the game pans out. 

We had enough chances in the game to be on the winning side, but ultimately we've only got ourselves to blame because in that crucial moment of the game we didn't manage it well enough and unfortunately that's happened too many times during this campaign.

ON EMMANUEL AGYEI’S DEBUT

You can see what he's going to bring to the team in terms of his all-round physical aggression but he's very disciplined in that defensive midfield role. He had one or two stray passes on Saturday but I think a lot of that was due to the surface - I thought it was a terrific debut from him. He had some really important interceptions and a few good strong tackles as well! 

It's an area of the pitch that I think you always need to have a good number of options especially when you look at what's happened to Craig Sibbald, picking up that muscle injury.

Those guys in the middle of the park tend to be the most combative, they tend to be the ones on a matchday who have the most physical output and it's really important for us to have those options in there which is why we brought Emmanuel to the club.

ON CRAIG SIBBALD’S INJURY

The medical team aren't overly concerned with the injury. It's obviously a muscle injury, it looks like a hamstring strain and it can be anything from two to four weeks I suppose depending on how quickly he recovers.

ON BOUNCING BACK WITH A VICTORY AGAINST THE DONS AND CLOSING THE GAP ON THE TOP SIX

This busy period that we find ourselves in means that we've got less time to prepare for the next game so we can't dwell on what happened on Saturday.

We have to move on very quickly now to another difficult game against a strong opposition. Aberdeen are in a similar situation to ourselves where they won't be happy with where they find themselves in the league table at the moment. 

Our record recently against Aberdeen has been very good and we have to try and build on that. We feel we dropped two points on Saturday and the only way to make amends for that is to go out and win the next game. 

As much as we've given ourselves a bit of a mountain to climb in terms of catching Falkirk in sixth, we still won't give up the fight and we'll keep going right until the end. We're relying on Falkirk losing and ourselves having to win a lot of the last few games before the split but we'll keep going.

We've got a great record as I said against Aberdeen and hopefully we can continue that tomorrow night.

ON GAME MANAGEMENT AND KEEPING CLEAN SHEETS

We always back ourselves to score goals - I think we've got real individual quality at the top end of the pitch and that was encapsulated by Amar Fatah at the weekend. We know what he's capable of in that situation. 

Scoring goals has never been a concern for us - it's keeping clean sheets is what we've really tried to focus on and we were working on that again with the defenders. 

People having to take responsibility in those key moments and ultimately everybody needs to step up and do their jobs. We have to get back to clean sheets and we have to do it pretty quickly.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FIXTURE TO OUR SUPPORTERS

I stressed to the players Saturday evening after the Kilmarnock game about the importance of picking ourselves up after dropping two points so late on. We spoke about the rivalry and we know what this fixture means to our own supporters.

Dundee obviously went to Pittodrie and won and I'm sure our supporters will be hoping that we can do the same at home at Tannadice tomorrow night. We'll do our best to make sure we get that result for them.