Jim Goodwin recalls same slump at St Mirren after League Cup glory

Dundee United boss Jim Goodwin recalled how the St Mirren side he captained to League Cup glory some 13 years ago went through a similar post-triumph hangover to the one the current Buddies side appear to be enduring.

United are preparing to host Saints on Saturday at a time when Stephen Robinson’s team have won only one of their seven league matches since the euphoria of defeating Celtic in the Premier Sports Cup final last month.

Goodwin was skipper of the Paisley side the previous time they won the same trophy in March 2013 and they failed to win any of their seven top-flight matches immediately afterwards.

“I think it’s difficult after the highs of winning the cup then to refocus and get back on to the league programme. I’ve seen that numerous times,” said the United manager, who made 181 appearances for Saints.

“It actually happened to my own team back in 2013. We really struggled to get any momentum in the league after the cup final.

“Stephen Robinson has had lots of injuries to key players as well to contend with, but they’ve still got a very good, strong squad available to them. We will certainly be preparing for a very difficult fixture.

“They gave us a really difficult game in Paisley last time out and deserved to win the game and we need to make sure that we don’t have a similar type of performance on Saturday because we can’t afford to be on the wrong end of the result.”

United are five points adrift of the top six after winning just two of their last 13 league matches.

“We have to put a run of wins together, something that we haven’t been able to do up to now,” said Goodwin.

“We’re going into that last block of 11 games now prior to the split and we have to start picking up maximum points on a consistent basis.”