Dundee United defender Ryan Edwards has called on his team-mates to get “nasty” or suffer the consequences.

United have not won in eight matches ahead of their trip to Dingwall to face Ross County on Saturday.

Micky Mellon’s side suffered their third consecutive Scottish Premiership defeat on Wednesday against Motherwell to make it nine goals conceded in three matches.

Edwards was recalled in a new-look central defence and headed United a late lifeline in their 2-1 defeat, but the damage had been done by then with the home team taking a first-half lead following a corner.

United have now lost five goals from set-pieces during their barren run and Edwards shared his thoughts on how to stop the rot.

“Be nastier, just be nastier,” he told DUTV. “It’s a great bunch, it’s the best dressing room I have been in personality-wise. Everyone is a great lad.

“But when we go on the pitch I think we have to be nasty and do whatever you can to stop them scoring and do whatever you can to score.”

The former Blackpool player added: “We speak about it every week, if you can’t defend set-pieces coming in your box, whether it’s individually or collectively or just someone taking control, then what chance have you got in any football match?

“How many games is that in a row now? It seems to be every game for a few weeks. Even if we haven’t been conceding off them, we look like conceding off them.

“We tried something different on Wednesday night with me being a spare man to go and attack it. Obviously it’s not come that far but if it comes down to individual battles, if you can’t win it you have got to stop your man.”

Manager Micky Mellon also pinpointed United’s struggles to deal with several set-pieces as the turning point in a first half which Motherwell went on to dominate.

Wednesday’s results give second-bottom Ross County the chance to cut the gap on United to two points, and Mellon has told his team they need to show more resilience.

“They are a good group, they are absolutely gutted that they found the 30 per cent extra at half-time and didn’t start like that,” he said.

“But we have to now man up and understand that we have lost three games. We have to be tougher in those moments and see games along until we can find a way back into it to cause teams problems.

“We need to understand that in certain periods of the game, whether it’s free-kicks, corners or winning knockdowns, you have just got to accept that and be a good player at that.

“And then we will find a way of playing the way that we can play, like we did in the second half.”