Dundee Utd: Jackie McNamara pays no heed to online criticism

Dundee United lost 4-0 at Hamilton Saturday

Dundee United manager Jackie McNamara is focused entirely on Saturday's visit from Celtic and pays no attention to criticism on social media.

McNamara came in for flak following last weekend's 4-0 loss at Hamilton.

But he asked: "How many Dundee United fans go on social media? Do the 7,500 who turn up [at Tannadice] go onto it? Or is it a couple?

"I don't know, because I'm not on it. If I reacted to things like that I wouldn't be able to do my job."

United have picked up four points from their opening four Premiership matches, with McNamara describing the first-half performance at New Douglas Park as the worst since he arrived at the club in February 2013.

After a miserable end to last season, they have managed just four wins from their last 22 competitive matches.

Asked if he felt he needed to win the fans back, McNamara replied: "No, I need to win games of football.

And if he felt the majority of supporters were still behind him?

"I don't know," he said, "You'll have to get them all on social media and ask them."

Dundee United manager Jackie McNamara is looking forward to facing former side Celtic

Reflecting on the loss at Hamilton, McNamara is adamant that it was a hiccup in an otherwise reasonable start to the season.

"[It was] one result," explained the former Scotland full-back. "Hopefully just a bad day at the office.

"We looked relatively solid up to that game. A bit unfortunate in the first game against Aberdeen [1-0 loss], won the second game against Motherwell. The third game [2-2 with Dundee] there is the thin line of the shot off the crossbar which would've made it 3-1.

"I put it [the Hamilton defeat] down to a bad day. A lot of things went wrong. I certainly won't get carried away with all the other talk, and stuff I can't control."

Now McNamara wants to see a reaction from his players in the noon kick-off against the champions.

"I think it will be a great game for everyone to be involved in. As a player you want to play against the best players whether it be domestic or European. It's one we'll relish.

"Obviously we know the difficulty of the task and we need to do things a lot better than we did last weekend."

Meanwhile, United's head of youth Stevie Campbell remains suspended pending an internal investigation, with McNamara saying there was no indication how long the process will take.