Samaras keen to beat United

Hoops hoping side have learnt lessons from United clashes

By Richard Bailey   Last updated: 4th January 2009

Samaras keen to beat United

Samaras: Eyeing final place

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Celtic striker Georgios Samaras is determined to beat Dundee United when the sides meet later this month in the Co-operative Insurance Cup semi-final.

Samaras scored twice on Saturday in the SPL to fire the Hoops into a two lead goal but United hit back and came away with a well deserved draw.

The result means that Gordon Strachan's men have failed to beat the Terrors this season after the two sides drew 1-1 at Tannadice at the beginning of the campaign.

The former Manchester City striker, who signed for Celtic in July 2008, knows how tough the clash at Hampden Park will be but is confident his side will have learnt from their previous encounters with Craig Levein's men.

"We need to learn from our mistakes, prepare better and be ready to play them again in the cup," he said.

"But in the first half we were the team that played the better football. But in the second half we missed second balls, gave them too much space in which to play the ball and make their runs.

"They played in our half and that meant there was a really big gap between our defenders and strikers.

"We gave Dundee United the opportunity to play good football and they did that."

Unconcerned

The draw on Saturday, followed by Rangers' 3-0 win over Inverness, means that Celtic's lead at the top is cut to five points.

The Greece international remains unconcerned and insists that it is too early to begin to worry by the points difference between the top two.

"You cannot talk about seven points, eight points, or 10 points," added the striker who claimed his 13th and 14th goals of the season on Saturday.

"You just must look at every game and try and win it. But it's such a strange league. You don't know what's going to happen the next second as you saw against United.

"Hearts are strong, Aberdeen are always strong, so you never know where you will take points or drop points.

"But I am only interested in my team, what we do and how we keep ourselves at the top.

"I really don't care what the other teams do, how may goals they score and how they play."