With a number of players disobeying strict procedures, the Scottish Premiership was at risk of being stopped. Fortunately, just the teams in question, Aberdeen and Celtic, have had their games suspended for a week meaning that the Dundee United Hibernian game went ahead as planned. Both teams came into this game at Tannadice with great momentum with both coming away with away wins.
Micky Mellon got his first victory as Dundee United boss in a tricky away game to Motherwell. Dundee United’s opposition, Hibernian are enjoying life being top of the pile ahead of the likes of Celtic and Rangers as Jack Ross’ side kept their 100% record on the weekend.
Hibernian ensured their faultless streak continued in Dundee as they overcame Mellon’s men in a very cagey game. Both sides had very few clear cut chances on the night but it was Christian Doidge’s clinical nature that was the difference between the sides on the 65th minute as he crashed the ball to the roof of the net from a tight angle continuing on his impressive goalscoring record from last season.
This tactical analysis will focus on the tactics of both teams and explain how Dundee United started brightly and did well to overwhelm Hibernian with there energy and intent to regain the ball back. This analysis will also look at how Ross changed his team shape which ensured they started to control the game and thus create more chances which resulted in them getting their second away win on the bounce to stay in a Champions League position at the top of the table.
Lineups
Mellon set up his side in a 3-5-2 formation moving away from the 4-4-2 shape he employed against Stephen Robinson’s Motherwell side. With Mellon’s preference being a back three in this game he made the necessary changes to accommodate this switch as two players came into the side. Ryan Edwards made his debut for the side and started on the right of the back three as he replaced Liam Smith. Mellons other change was in the forward line as Nicky Clark came in for Logan Chalmers who dropped to the bench.
Ross elected not to change his team’s shape as he set up his side in a 4-4-2 formation. The former Sunderland did not make any personnel changes as he was quite happy with his side that comprehensively beat Livingston 1-4 in West Lothian on the weekend. Hibernian put on a great attacking display in the Tony Macaroni Arena with left-back Josh Doig, both wingers Martin Boyle and Daryl Horgan being a big influence in this great performance and were rewarded with a starting place once more. Upfront Kevin Nisbet stole the headlines on the weekend scoring a hat-trick, he paired up with Christian Doidge to make up the dangerous front two.
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