Appearances & Goals To Date

Ewen MacDonald (GK)		54 apps	-
Johnny Crawford		90 apps	5 goals
Jamie Michie		79 apps	-
Stuart Smith		186 apps	17 goals
Wayne Mackintosh		28 apps	4 goals
Scott Barbour		121 apps	58 goals
Liam Burnett		39 apps	6 goals
Archie MacPhee		36 apps	30 goals
Scott Ferries		58 apps	7 goals
Conor Gethins		62 apps	21 goals
Garry Wood		96 apps	51 goals
Stuart Anderson (sub)		160 apps	28 goals
Andrew Greig (sub)		11 apps	4 goals
Graeme Rodger (sub)		129 apps	43 goals

Starting Lineup

Matchday Squad

First Team Debuts

Milestones

You know that your in the end of season run in when you can see that the team selection for one game owes as at least as much to the next one as it does to the one immediately at hand. This was a league game, in a table where United desperately want to finish as high as possible (and that definitely includes getting above arch rivals Locos) but also realistically accept that barring a miracle of some sort, the title will go to Cove. The next game, only three days hence, is the semi final of the Breedon Aggregates Highland League Cup away to Brora Rangers. The equation for manager Lawson was to balance the need for points in a competition that he cant win against maximising resources for the cup competition which he could, with a bit of luck and if he played his cards right, win. The two plus games a week schedule is a punishing one and, call it what you will, shuffling the pack, rotating the squad or whatever, there was no way he was going to risk injury or exhaustion to more key players than he could avoid. The object of the exercise was to pinch a win as cheaply as possible.

The evidence is that he called it just right: United did just enough to subdue and eventually overcome spirited resistance from a young, highly energetic and well organised side to nick all three points. The bench was stiff with players like Anderson, McKeown, Rodger who are generally considered as key elements in the bedrock of the side and it was not pretty – the aesthetic of sweet flowing football that United have been playing of late was not there most of the time and there were players in positions where they do not normally play. Gary Wood normally a striker came into the back four as a centre back alongside Jonny Crawford who is the regular right back. Scott Ferries played a much deeper midfield role than he has so far. The priority was to dig out out a win. To win ugly does not necessarily involve playing dirty to get there – it can mean simply taking the most pragmatic approach to ensuring victory and thats what they did. Some sides do it all the time. There is enough quality throughout the squad to do that.

Nairn opened bright eyed and bushy-tailed and took the game to United from the get go showing that they were going to give their visitors a difficult afternoon particularly in midfield. Uniteds Mackintosh was signed from Nairn and his guile is well known to them. Their strategy for dealing with this craftsman was a mixture of trying to keep the ball away from him and closing him down immediately he got on it. That said, he has so much guile, craft and experience that they still had an almighty task in trying to achieve it.

Porritt, Urquhart and MacLennan were not simply ball winners but showed that they could distribute well too. Over the first fifteen minutes or so Nairn were giving at least as good as they got in terms of territory and possession although United, when pressing forward still looked the more direct and menacing of the two. In the 11th minute MacPhee, about forty yards out threaded a crafty ball through to Gethins, leaving the former fans favourite of Station Park one on one with the keeper and just outside the box. MacLeod was off his line and got far enough forward to block a crisp, low and accurate drive.

In the 18th minute some of the risks attached to the Formartine selection gamble showed when apparent lack of communication between Burnett and Ferries left a hole through Macrae drove forward one on one with keeper MacDonald who got close enough to him to make the block before getting the ball via Crawford to the relative safety of a thrown in for Nairn. Nairn used this to sustain pressure on the United rearguard who were at this stage struggling with the movement that Nairn had from their interlinking and overlapping forwards. Within a minute they had won a free kick out left only a couple of yards in from touch. MacLennan swung over a well judged curler that caught the United defence flat and was placed perfectly to meet the effectively unchallenged run of MACRAE whose powerful header flew well beyond the right hand of Macdonald into the net.

This was certainly not part of the United game plan but their response was good. They were beginning to accustomise themselves to their new line up and although far short of the slick running machine they can be at times, fluency did improve enough for them to begin to make and sustain pressure at the other end. Barbour was getting more of the ball and forced a number of corners taken mostly by MacPhee. The pressure on the home defence was mounting and for the next fifteen or twenty minutes most, but by no means all of the action was in home territory.

In the 34th minute and after a period of sustained pressure around the home penalty area, Barbour out left, got inside MacDonald and drove the ball across the box where it was dinked on by Gethins to MACPHEE. Closely marked though he was, pure class told in the end as he gathered the ball in, dropped a shoulder, spun round and leathered it viciously low inches inside the right post. Macleod did well to get down to reach it but was unable to cope with the pace on the ball as it squirmed from his grasp into the net.

The pressure was on and United knew how to keep it on. Almost straight from the resumption they were back on the attack. Again they forced themselves down the left side. Barbour from about 20 yards out and left of centre, drove the ball into the box where there was a wee clump of players round the left upright. Before it could get there, and for reasons known only to himself, Porrit put a hand on the ball. Barbour took the ensuing penalty kick himself – possibly his first in open play for United. He hit it decently enough – low to the keepers left. MacLeod had guessed correctly and made the save at the base of the upright, turning the ball round the post for a corner. MacPhee played this deep and in the midst of a back post stramash GETHINS was the quickest and fliest there and quickly popped it into the net from three or four yards out.

That was the match winner. However to hold onto a single goal lead from the 37th minute against as pacy and organised a side as Nairn was not going to be the game plan. That it turned out that way was more a result of Nairn pressure and endeavour than Formartine intent. The second half was a closely contested affair conducted almost entirely in midfield – not by midfielders as much as by more or less everyone - but in that area. Goalmouth action was scarce in the extreme but Ewan managed a superb 63rd min header that MacDonald did well to touch over the top for an unrewarded corner.

Nairn might just have shaded the possession stats but they struggled to get the ball through to their strikers and as Formartine did a lot of their defending in midfield that made the problem worse for Nairn. The second half eventually got bogged down into a rather dour midfield battle but that was a situation that was always going to favour the more experienced United.

United had more control over this than Nairn but found it difficult to penetrate their rearguard. A 68th min lay off by MacPhee left the centre back with a decent sight of goal but the ball met him at knee height and was scooped over the top. A couple of minutes later a tight angle drive by Macrae flashed across the United goal face and grazed the junction of post and bar on its way out

Sub Greig livened things up a bit for United but midfield had too much of a grip for there to be any more scoring

Match report by Colin Keenan