Jim Goodwin hopes his Dundee United team can pose problems for Celtic

Jim Goodwin is braced for a formidable challenge as he tries to rally his embattled Dundee United side for their third game in less than a week away to Celtic.

The Tangerines defeated Dundee 2-1 in a hard-fought derby at Dens Park last Thursday evening before suffering a 1-0 defeat at home to Hearts on Sunday in a match where he felt his side suffered from their exertions 72 hours earlier.

Goodwin’s side visit the champions on Wednesday and he admits it will be a tall order to pull off a repeat of the 0-0 draw they managed at home to Brendan Rodgers’ side the Sunday before Christmas.

“It’s going to need to be a similar level of performance out of possession (to the home game against Celtic),” the manager told DUTV. “We expect Celtic to have more of the ball on Wednesday night, like they do at Parkhead.

“They tend to have 70, 75% of the possession. When we get the opportunity to play, we need to be brave. We’ll need to try and get a bit of pace and a bit of energy into the team for the game on Wednesday and try and offer some kind of threat on the counter-attack.

“We’ve got to see how the players recover from the Hearts game. That’s two games for some of them in the space of 72 hours, so we’ll just check in with the medical team and then we’ll pick a system and a line-up that we think is good enough to go and get a result.”

Goodwin felt his third-placed team had a rare “off day” as their impressive four-game unbeaten run through the festive period was halted by resurgent Hearts on Sunday but he is happy with where his newly-promoted team are overall in the William Hill Premiership.

“I’m not being too hard on the group,” he said. “There was a lack of energy within the game. I felt for both sets of players. It’s difficult to play on a Thursday and then go again at 100% on the Sunday.

“It was a really, really disappointing result but at the same time I think it’s important to put things into perspective. We’ve been on a great run prior to that.

“It’s only our second defeat in 11 games. We’re still sitting third in the table. If you’d have offered that to most people in a Dundee United sense, I think we’d have all taken the position that we’re in.”