Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Key battles in clash at Capplielow
DUNDEE United’s trip west on Saturday to Morton is the clash of the Championship’s form teams.
As has been well documented, the Tangerines are on a nine-game unbeaten run that’s seen them win seven games on the bounce.
Morton have also been going great guns. They’ve won seven of their last 10, drawn one and, of the two defeats, one was in the League Cup semi-final clash with Premiership Aberdeen.
Encouragingly for Arabs, the only Championship side to better them recently has been United, when they edged the ’ Ton out i n a l eague encounter at Tannadice in September.
A word of caution — the last defeat suffered by Ray McKinnon’s men came three days earlier down at Cappielow in the Betfred Cup.
Saturday’s clash is another massive game and tonight we look at the key battles where it will be won or lost.
Frank van der Struijk v Kudus Oyenuga
Dutchman Van der Struijk has been a rock since moving to right-back when the teams last met in that Tannadice league game.
He’ll be handed the task of snuffing out the threat posed by a man whose name is well known to United fans, though his style of play isn’t.
Kudus Oyenuga was signed by the Tangerines on a three-year contract in the summer of 2013. He left after two years of that deal — his first-team game time was limited to just two minutes, plus injury time, of a league draw with Motherwell.
The English wide man has featured regularly for Morton and scored in last week’s success at Dumbarton.
Nick van der Velden v Gavin Gunning
Another new-versus-old clash as United’s other summer signing from Holland battles it out with former Tangerine Gavin Gunning.
Given Van der Velden can play several positions and has been benched recently, there’s a bit of guess work going on here. The 34-year-old did return to the starting line-up at Dunfermline last week, played up front and got his team’s goal in that 2-1 cup defeat i n