McLeish hails de Boer masterclass

Dundee United 1

The Dutchman scored two and made two others for Shota Arveladze in his side’s win at Dundee United.

Ex-Ger Billy Dodds netted a consolation for the home side near the end of a game played on a balding, heavily-sanded surface.

McLeish was full of praise for a player whose previous campaigns at Rangers had been blighted by regular lay-offs through injury.

He said: “That was probably as good a performance as we’ve seen. He has been very consistent and at the start of the season I said to him we needed him to play for a significant part of the season for us to have a crack.

“He had a great pre-season and that gave him the energy and capacity to play as many games as he has. His performance on an extremely poor surface was quite outstanding,” he said.

The Tannadice pitch certainly will not help United’s efforts to remain off the bottom of the league, a position Motherwell currently hold but only by a point McLeish added:

“It is poor for Premier League standards. If you look at Ian McCall’s team I’m sure a lot of their lads would prefer a better playing surface than that.

"I don’t want to criticise the groundsman and whether it is to do with the undersoil heating I’m not sure, but for Premier League standards that’s not good enough.

“Thank God there weren’t any injuries because on that pitch someone could definitely turned their ankle or twisted their knee.”

McCall was also scathing about the surface. He said: “The pitch is shocking. To play stuff like that on it, fair play to Rangers I take my hat off.

“When I played on that park it was exceptional. It was actually worse against Livingston. We put a lot of sand on it to try and make it better but that is something we will have to look at for next season.

“It’s been like that since I have been there. It has not been as bad as that but it is poor.But it didn’t hamper Rangers playing, certainly for half an hour at least,” said McCall.

DUNDEE UTD: Gallacher, Tod, Wilson (Lauchlan 63), Bollan, Duff, Latapy (Smart 72), Griffin, Easton (Dodds 50), Paterson, McIntyre, Miller.

RANGERS: Klos, Muscat, Moore, Malcolm, Numan, Ricksen, Arteta (Caniggia 65), Konterman, De Boer (Thompson 74), Arveladze, Lovenkrands (McCann 79).

Referee: D McDonald (Scotland).