1st Division Pars Cause Utd Problems

Once again, a former player haunted Dundee United at the weekend, as striker Stevie Crawford put Dunfermline 1-0 up at the weekend.

Dundee United kick started their pre-season preparations with a close-door match against Stephen Kenny`s side, but it was 1st division Dunfermline who opened the scoring in the 1st half.

A cross from Stephen Simmons from the right wing was tapped in, from close range, by former United frontman Crawford.

However, a late leveller from young talent David Goodwillie ensured that Craig Levein`s side returned to Dundee with a slight more encouraging 1-1 draw.

Although, Dunfermline were far from happy with Goodwillie`s 2nd half equaliser, since they judged the 19-year-old to have been offside when he scored less than 15minutes from the end.

The Pars defence made the mistake of assuming the linesman would flag for offside, but they could just stand and watch as Goodwillie blasted in from 10-yards to level the score at 1-1.

Manager Craig Levein will be unhappy at the score line, but at least the match gave him a chance to see trialists Marc-Eric Guei and Jani Sturm under match conditions.

"Our bounce game against Dunfermline on Saturday at Rosyth was a good exercise, but I`m not reading too much into anything as the players went into the game on the back of gruelling sessions" admitted Levein to the Evening Telegraph.

"This week will give me a better chance to assess things and have a closer look at our two trialists, Marc-Eric Guei and Jani Sturm."

"We have another bounce game against Cowdenbeath at the end of this week, and they will also play in that one."