Micky Mellon says Dundee United still have to prove their Scottish Premiership credentials despite taking a huge step towards safety with a 2-0 win over Ross County in Dingwall.

United are now eight points ahead of the Staggies, who are in the relegation play-off zone, thanks to second-half goals from Lawrence Shankland and Ryan Edwards.

The Tangerines boss said: “It was a massive result but it doesn’t stop.

“I won’t change what I believe my job is here, and that’s to keep moving forward and developing my team into Premiership players and that is what I will continue to do.

“There were loads of positives. We understood we had to come up here and get a result and we understood what a big game it was.

“We showed great composure in doing that and playing well over 90 minutes.”

The visitors ended an eight-game run without a victory and manager Mellon says he was always confident they could get back to winning ways.

“I wouldn’t stand here and say football is not about winning,” he said.

“It is all about winning but what we tried to concentrate on was getting the focus right without trying to get too complicated.

“We work hard to give ourselves a chance of winning games and we never lose focus on that.

“We know we have to win games and we knew that, given time, we would get the win and a 90-minute performance would come.

“I just spoke to them there and good players do that all the time. When the game is tough they keep going and when the opportunity comes to play they take it.

“We have to be tough on ourselves and to keep trying to achieve that all the time.”

Ross County manager John Hughes was disappointed with how his team performed after they conceded the first goal, saying they resigned themselves to being second best on the day.

“After that, we lost our way a little bit, played back to front too much,” he said. “I felt we were just hoping to get there – we stopped playing.

“We should have got the ball side-to-side and not let the goal affect us. We chased it too much.”