SCOTT McMann believes the emergence of Dundee United's young guns has proved the silver lining in their recent domestic slump.

Tam Courts' side dropped out of the top-six for the first time this season following their 3-1 Boxing Day defeat at home to Hibs, leaving them with just one victory in their last ten matches.

But defender McMann, who joined from Hamilton back in the summer, has been heartened by the reaction of youngsters such as Declan Glass who executed a stunning injury-time strike oN sunday.

McMann said: “From our perspective, it hasn’t been easy with Covid but it did give the younger lads a chance to come in and they have done well. 

“I have been really impressed by them but it’s no surprise because we see them every day in training, so we know the kind of future they’re going to have in the game. 

“They have come in and done everything the manager has asked of them, which is great from his perspective because it gives extra options."

United have been hit hard with Covid in recent weeks but McMann is convinced they'll come back stronger from the rescheduled winter break.

He added: “It was disappointing to lose to Hibs, we knew it would be tough because we have had a lot of injuries then Covid has hit us pretty hard. 

“But despite all that, we still felt we had enough to get something from the game so we feel we should have done better. 

“Covid has been challenging lately, it’s not just us, a lot of the other clubs in the league are struggling with it. 

“Quite a few have had players missing and teams have been struggling to name squads for matches, so it makes sense to bring the break forward a week. 

“Nobody wants to be watching games where teams are massively under strength so you can understand why they made that decision. 

“We will just have the break now, it will let us get injured players back too and hopefully we will be much stronger again when the games start up."