Ryan McGowan is prepared for another tough meeting with Celtic this weekend as he sets his sights on a Europa League berth for Dundee United. Sunday's game will be the seventh between the sides this season, including four-in-a-row in all three domestic competitions last month. United earned a 1-1 draw in the first of that quartet in the Scottish Cup, but lost the replay in between defeats in the League Cup final and Scottish Premiership.Celtic travel to Tayside for the second time in five days following Wednesday’s 2-1 win over United’s neighbours at Dens Park, but with memories fresh from their controversial 3-2 defeat to Inverness in last Sunday's Scottish Cup semi-final.
The Australia international, who joined United on an 18-month deal in January, said: "I think it’s a huge game. It's against Celtic and they’re coming off the back of a sore defeat. It's going into the top six where we really want to get a run together and get a real push for third in the league and getting into Europe. We will concentrate on how we perform and sticking to the game plan that the manager sees fit. I think it’s more important that we worry about ourselves and make sure we are doing our jobs."
In the first three games between the teams in March, McGowan was one of four United players sent-off, with two Celtic players also taking the lonely walk off the pitch early. However, the former Hearts defender does not expect any bad blood between the teams in their final meeting of the campaign. He said: "I don’t think so. I think it’s more of you guys in the media that have built that up I guess. We are professionals and we go about each game differently. It’s quite strange; I’ll play Celtic five times and won’t play against St Mirren or Motherwell. It’s strange how that works out with the top six and the Cup games we have met them in but another good test and hopefully we can come away with the win this time. The manager will have his plans and tactics and we will work on it in training this week."
Former United favourites Stuart Armstrong and Gary Mackay-Steven return to Tannadice for the first time since moving to Celtic in February. While McGowan believes their departures had an impact on United's season, he is convinced the decision to sell the duo was for the good of the club. He said: "I’m not in a position to say if it was right or wrong. That’s up to people higher up than me to make those decisions and what’s best interest for the clubs. But from a players point of view it definitely did weaken us. You can see how well they have done since they have gone to Celtic, they’ve improved Celtic and that’s credit to the two boys, they’re very good players. They’ll probably go on from Celtic and make a very good career and play at the top level. I think we do have to adapt better to losing those players but we are bringing in younger boys who need that experience and it was a difficult time but we can’t linger and sulk about losing those two players, we have to get on with it and make sure we turn the results around."
McGowan reckons United have produced some of their best displays in high pressure occasions this season, and with five games remaining he is confident the team can claim third place ahead of Inverness. He said: "I definitely think we can still make Europe. We have still to play Inverness who are direct opponents above us and we would definitely look for three points in those games and picking up points against the rest. I think if we can get a bit of a run going there’s no reason we can’t come third. We have performed well in the big games. The semi-final against Aberdeen we won and we gave Celtic a good account, should have had a penalty at 1-0 which we didn’t get. These things happen in football but we will move on from that and it’s a perfect chance with these big games coming up to put a run together and really get into Europe."