Houston happy with three points

Dundee United boss Peter Houston felt his side were fully deserving of their 1-0 win over Hearts at Tynecastle on Sunday. David Goodwillie was missing after United agreed a fee with Blackburn for the 22-year-old, but the visitors put the potential departure of their talisman behind them when Jon Daly nodded in Willo Flood's 38th-minute corner.In a riveting contest between the teams who finished third and fourth in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League last term, John Rankin had earlier hit the bar with a free-kick for United after being brought down on the edge of the box as the visitors showed they are more than a one-man team and there will be life after Goodwillie.Houston, who made the decision on Friday not to play Goodwillie, said: "I always knew we were going to get a tough game here at Tynecastle and it was a tough game."In the first half there were spells when we had to survive some good pressure from Hearts."When you look at it, we had good chances in the first half - possibly a penalty, we hit the bar, Jon Daly brought a world-class save from their goalkeeper and we scored a goal."When you come to Tynecastle sometimes in 90 minutes you don't create as many chances."I don't think Dusan Pernis had an awful lot of saves to make."It was a hard-fought three points, but I thought fully merited."Daly had a volley saved by Hearts goalkeeper Marian Kello before converting a free header from the following corner when his marker, home captain Marius Zaliukas, was caught napping.Hearts had a number of opportunities themselves, with Stephen Elliott and David Templeton going close.The hosts, though, perhaps paid the price for their Europa League qualifying excursion in midweek, where they drew 1-1 with Paks.Manager Jim Jefferies refused to use the Hungary trip as an excuse."Later in the game we looked a bit heavy legged," said Jefferies."But that's no excuse - I thought we did enough in the first half certainly to warrant not being 1-0 down."The big disappointment of the first half was for them to score such an easy goal from a routine set play."You can't give Jon Daly that kind of room and expect to get away with it."Overall we were pushing forward, but they defended very, very well."We weren't that bad it's just the result didn't go in our favour."I thought a draw would've been a fairer result."Rudi Skacel returned from injury off the substitutes' bench and is poised to agree a contract extension, with his deal set to expire shortly."He's in talks tomorrow to get it sorted out," added Jefferies.

Source: Team_Talk