Dundee United manager hails team’s fitness levels after opening day win

Dundee United boss Peter Houston praised his side's display against Hibernian.SNS Group

Dundee United boss Peter Houston was full of praise for his side’s fitness levels after they beat Hibernian 3-0 at Tannadice.

Goals from Johnny Russell, Jon Daly and Michael Gardyne handed United the win and the result put the club top of the table after the first round of games.

The Tayside club showed no ill effects from their midweek European match, having played Dinamo Moscow on Thursday evening.

Houston picked the same starting eleven and saw them dominate Pat Fenlon’s side from the first whistle.

"I thought it was a good professional performance," he said.

"I did not change the team because they have proved their fitness levels and it wouldn't have made an excuse if we had started the game lethargically but I thought we started the game on fire.

"I was looking with 15 minutes ago to my backroom staff to say `are any of them wilting?' - I just made substitutions for the sake of it to give them game time."

Daly’s goal made the result safe before Gardyne’s goal added some gloss to the score line. Houston added: "We scored a goal and in my opinion we could have had a penalty but the referee didn't see it that way so we just have to get on with it.

"The other side of it was that we created that many chances, their goalkeeper has made a couple of good saves most noticeably through Jon Daly in the first half, and we missed glorious chances in the second half through Russell and Daly again.

"The game could have been won before it was but I cannot praise the players enough because they went about their business, they started at a high tempo and were still running."

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