Levein lauds terrific Tangerines

Midfielder Craig Conway netted the only goal after four minutes, but the visitors totally dominated the first half and could have had a far greater lead by half-time in what was their first win from this season's four games against the New Douglas Park side.Hamilton's goal chances were restricted to the start and end of the second half, with United goalkeeper Lukasz Zaluska producing an excellent close-range save from James McCarthy deep into the four minutes of stoppage-time.Levein said: "The players were fantastic, and although we had a little nervous five minutes at the end, we thoroughly deserved to win."Anybody who watched the game would tell you that, and that we probably deserved to win quite easily."I felt all week that we would play well today. Francisco Sandaza was fantastic at times, and the only thing he didn't get was a goal to go with his good play."Hamilton's goalkeeper [Tomas Cerny] was fantastic and I understand why Billy Reid is trying to get him on a permanent deal, because some of the saves he made were out of this world."Regarding Celtic-bound Zaluska's decisive late contribution, Levein added: "We didn't really need him a lot until the last kick of the ball."He is improving at a rapid rate of knots and unfortunately he'll be doing that for somebody else next season, but while he's here I must compliment him on his attitude."We had a couple of setbacks before kick-off - Morgaro Gomis has an infected foot and Warren Feeney had food poisoning, so we had to jig things round a little; Andis Shala came in for his starting debut and I was pleased with his performance."United are level with fourth-placed Aberdeen and five points behind Hearts with six games left, and Levein added: "I'm happy that we're in the top six, and we now have to push on and see if we can catch teams above us."Reid claimed the ball had gone out of play before Sandaza cut it back from the byline for Conway to score the game's fourth-minute winner.The Hamilton manager admitted frankly, however, that his side could have no complaints about a defeat which leaves them with just one point and no goals from their past six league games.He said: "I don't think we did enough to win; we started terribly, although United played really well in the first half, won the battle in the middle of the park, created chances and were the team in the ascendancy."The goal was a smashing finish by Conway, but I thought the ball was out - I've looked at the monitor and I thought at the time that our players could have reacted more, but I don't have any doubt the ball was out."We looked tired and lethargic, weren't ourselves and had too many players not on top of their game, and one or two are playing with injuries, which showed."We had two or three good chances to score and nick a point - and it would have been nicking a point."James McCarthy was one-on-one at the end and it was a good save; James McArthur and Derek Asamoah had chances as well and at the moment we aren't taking them."Describing Cerny's contribution in preventing United extending their lead, Reid said: "He's an outstanding goalkeeper; he played in the second half with a wee injury but he's a top goalkeeper in the SPL."The defeat saw Hamilton drop one place in the table to 10th, six points clear of bottom side Falkirk.Reid added: "There will be no panic - we'll get the points we need."

Source: Team_Talk