Dundee United boss Peter Houston believes Mihael Kovacevic must fight to regain his place in the side after being sent off against Rangers. The defender saw red in the 70th minute for aiming a kick at Kyle Lafferty in the 0-0 draw at Tannadice.

"When you do that and get yourself involved, you deserve to get sent off," Houston told BBC Scotland.

"It's his problem. He's not in the team for Sunday, and if we do well, he'll need to fight to get his place back."

United edged closer to Celtic in the league table, who sit seven points ahead of the Taysiders in second place.

"We have young Keith Watson, we've got Sean Dillon who can play there - we gave him an opportunity to get back into the team tonight, and he's going to be the one who is sorry about that.

"But I'm proud of the players for the effort and commitment they put in, especially when we went down to 10 men.

"We had a couple of snippets at goal, but it was a tight game, as I thought it would be.

"But to play with 10 men against the champions for 25 minutes, our players did themselves proud.

"We look over our shoulder at Hibs and Motherwell, but we've gained a point.

"Celtic winning against Motherwell has been a bit of a problem for us and we'll keep battling regardless.

"We have more points than we won last year, and we want more."