Source: Team_Talk
MacPherson: Buddies lacked belief
Saturday's SPL clash at St Mirren ended in a goalless stalemate.
With Saints still looking for their first league win in the new stadium they moved into back in January and confidence high in the United camp following their impressive win over Hearts earlier in the week, the visitors were perhaps favourites for the win.
However, with chances from both sides few and far between both managers were satisfied with the outcome, with the Saints boss admitting he would have been more than happy to settle for a draw beforehand.
"Definitely," he said. "We saw their performance against Hearts on Monday and we knew the quality we were up against - a lot of people are talking about Dundee United being favourites for third place this season.
"I thought we competed with them and played some good stuff at times and it was a very evenly-matched game. Over the piece we have competed well and we have been a match for Dundee United.
"I think you have to give credit to the defenders of both teams. There were a couple of half-chances. We just needed that belief to make something happen but maybe the belief that we could get that winning goal was what was missing."
United are expected to be one of the main challengers for third place this season but boss Craig Levein had no complaints about failing to return to Tannadice with maximum points.
"I thought it was a fair result," he said.
"It was two well-organised, hard-working and well set-up teams. The way the defenders were performing it was going to be a mistake or a piece of magic to win the game but I don't think the strikers really did well enough to provide that little piece of magic.
"I've no complaints about the result. I said to the lads that it's a long, long season.
"If we keep on putting in that sort of effort - which I believe we will - we will be hard to beat first and foremost. We were hard to beat today.
"Coming here, we didn't play particularly well but we got a point, we are undefeated and we play at home next week."
Levein admits several players did not hit the heights they displayed against Hearts and that his players just failed to do enough to merit a win in Paisley.
He said: "I would take a point here most times in all honesty. When I look at the way we were playing today, I thought half a dozen were maybe just not as good as they were on Monday night.
"We worked our backsides off but just didn't provide enough quality to win the game."
