Watson takes confidence from Athens

Keith Watson believes Dundee United can use their improvement in Athens as inspiration to get their SPL season back on track. The Tannadice team recorded a deserved 1-1 draw against AEK Athens on Thursday and were inches away from going through to the Europa League group stages when Danny Swanson narrowly missed a chance in the final minutes.Watson, who played in both legs and is making the right-back position his own, reckons the confidence boost from Thursday can help them go to face Hearts on Sunday ready to erase the memory of their 4-0 defeat to Inverness last weekend.He said: "I thought I was much better and the team as a whole played very well on Thursday."We were disappointed after the first leg at Tannadice because we didn't feel we did ourselves justice."In Athens we showed what we are capable of and we feel we could have gone through - all the boys are disappointed at going out and we should be because we almost made it."From my point of view I'm also pleased because I was not happy with the first leg and I wanted to improve."We had gone into the game on the back of two poor results but I think we showed we're getting back to our best."Obviously playing Hearts is going to be a big test because they have started the season really well but our confidence is up again after outplaying a top team like AEK for a while on Thursday."The European thing is over now, it's all about the league again and that's what we'll focus on."The lads want to improve on last season so that means going to places like Tynecastle and picking up points."United played in a virtually empty stadium on Thursday because of security concerns when the match was switched to the home of AEK's deadly rivals Olympiacos.But while they had the backing of their own fans only in midweek, Watson expects a marked contrast at Tynecastle."It was weird running out (in Athens) and all we could see were empty seats on the far side, but we could hear our fans," he said."They were amazing and all the boys were talking about it."It was like there were 5,000 not 500 there and I pleased we gave them something to shout about."Tynecastle will be totally different from the other night because it's one of the best stadiums to play in and I'm sure it will be near a full house."The fact the fans are so close to the pitch always makes it great, so it really will be one extreme to the other."United will recall strikers Jon Daly and David Goodwillie for the trip to Edinburgh, while Danny Cadamarteri is an injury doubt.

Source: Team_Talk