Dundee United Manager Jim Goodwin spoke to the broadcast media to preview our William Hill Premiership clash with Dundee on Matchday 30.

The boss discussed the squad’s excitement ahead of the third Dundee Derby of the 2025/26 campaign, getting time on the training pitch after a gruelling fixture pile-up and team news.

Watch the full press conference below!

ON DERBY FEVER 

We're looking forward to it - both the players and staff know what this fixture means to the supporters.

We want to win the game. We had a good result there early on in the season at Dens and we want to go and do the same again on Sunday. Maintaining the gap between ourselves and Dundee is also important.

Hopefully we can extend that at the weekend and we've got an outside chance still on the top six, albeit we need to win a number of the last four games before the split and hope that Falkirk don't. But we'll keep fighting for the top six and more importantly we want to win this derby.

I think these games are ultimately decided by the team that does the basics well - we have to defend the box better than we did on Friday night against Falkirk. But I always believe we carry a real attacking threat so I've got no concerns about us creating chances on Sunday. 

We just have to make sure defensively that we've got that solid base, that good structure and I think if we do both those things then I think we'll come out on the right side of the result.

The players are under no illusions of what this means and we'll be ready.

ON PUTTING PREVIOUS DISAPPOINTMENTS BEHIND US

We're sitting seventh in the league table at the moment. We're not overly pleased with that given the good season that we had last year. We want to be a consistent Top Six team and we believe that we've got the infrastructure and the fan base there to do that.

But the aim right now is to focus on the game on Sunday and to try and win, it's as simple as that. Obviously we suffered a bit of disappointment last week in the game against Falkirk but we've had to put that one behind us now and focus on the next one.

It was nice to have no midweek game for the first time in about a month, so we've been able to get a bit of energy and freshness back into the squad.

We've been really positive all week with the players. I don't need to explain to them the significance of this particular fixture in terms of what it means to everyone connected to the club. We suffered real disappointment at Tannadice last time out and we don't want to have that feeling again on Sunday.

ON DUNDEE’S UPTURN IN FORM

Dundee have certainly picked up some good results in recent weeks and the team that we faced early on in the season looks a lot different to this one that we'll go up against on Sunday. 

They're coming into the game off the back of a really positive result against Motherwell but form and league position goes out the window in a game like this. You’ve got to manage the occasion, not let the emotion of the occasion get the better of you - it's going to be a battle.

There's so much at stake for both sets of players and both sets of supporters so that can only add to the occasion. Both games between the sides this season have been really competitive and I would expect Sunday to be no different.

In the most recent fixture, Dundee started the game a little bit better than what we did. They were more on the front foot, they played the game in our half and they did the simple things better than us.

That gave them a foothold in the game and they deservedly won in the end. We've analysed that game and we've taken learnings from that to make sure that those types of things don't happen again on Sunday.

ON TAKING IN THE OCCASION

I love being involved in these big games and I've thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the two this season, obviously less so the second one given the result.

As players and as staff you've got to look forward to these types of games. When the fixture list comes out at the beginning of the season these are the types of games that you look for first and the players know what this means to our supporters. 

We want to try and restore a bit of personal pride off the back of the disappointment in the Quarter-Final against Falkirk and the best way to do that is go and win your next game.

ON GETTING BACK INTO A REGULAR FIXTURE SCHEDULE

People don't like to hear managers talking about the volume of games and fatigue in players but they're only human at the end of the day. We had nine games in the space of five weeks and in the build up to the Scottish Cup Quarter-Final, I thought things could have been managed better by the SPFL.

The game against St Mirren was crammed in on the Tuesday night, giving us less time to recover for the game on Friday, and it was a game of such importance. 

We had a really congested fixture period and I think this week has been beneficial for us in terms of getting that rest that's needed but also working the players hard in training to make sure that we're prepared properly.

Every training session that we've had up to now has been real high intensity and energy and real aggression in all of the training sessions that we've done because that's what we're expecting on Sunday

ON TEAM NEWS

We're in a good place. There's no new injuries to discuss and we've got a good squad of players to go and choose from and hopefully we'll get that selection right on the day.

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