Dundee United head coach Tam Courts insists his players’ confidence remains high even after suffering their third defeat in a row on Saturday to Livingston.

David Martindale’s men secured all three points thanks to an Ayo Obileye second-half penalty.

Courts insisted the award of the spot-kick was a harsh decision but the result means United have now won just once in eight games.

However, looking at the bigger picture, the 40-year-old still believes the club have taken big strides forward during this campaign.

Courts said: “I think confidence is high. If we’d won against Livingston, we’d be eight points ahead of where we were this time last season. We know we’ve made progress.

“But we’ve also been reliant on a lot of the same players.

“You can see we’re not playing with the same rhythm as a few weeks ago so that’s something we need to address.

“It probably coincides with us going to the well with a lot of the same players.”

United’s next game is a daunting one, against Rangers at Ibrox.

The Tangerines will be huge underdogs despite the fact they beat the champions at Tannadice earlier in the season.

However, Courts insists his team should not be written off just yet.

He added: “A nice easy game next week! If we had won against Livingston it would be a match we could go and target a huge three points.

“Now we are clearly not in the best form from a results perspective but we are a resilient bunch and it’s another exciting match for us to look forward to.”

While United’s squad has been stretched recently, Courts was impressed by how well his subs did when they came on against Livi.

The former Kelty Hearts boss said: “I was really pleased with the impact we got from the bench.

“Declan Glass came into the starting side at the 11th hour, Adrian Sporle gave us a shot in the arm and Louis Appere was strong off the bench as was Archie Meekison.”

On-loan Manchester United loanee Dylan Levitt was due to make his first appearance for the Tangerines since the end of October but his knee injury flared up once more just before kick off against Livingston.

Courts said: “It seems to be a recurrence of the same injury in the warm-up.

“There’s no doubt Dylan makes us a better team but Declan came in and showed us what he’s all about and he got man of the match.”