St Mirren v Dundee United Tips | 21st January 2015

BT Sport 1 cover St Mirren v Dundee United tonight. We asked our resident Scot Chris Graham (@chrisgraham79) to take a look at the betting for us.

St Mirren v Dundee United | Wednesday 19:45 | BT Sport 1

St Mirren secured only their fourth win of the league season on Saturday when beating fellow relegation contenders Ross County 2-1 at Victoria Park. The key for me is what effect that will have on the struggling side?

Dundee United had the weekend off after their clash with Inverness was called off on Saturday. We saw on Tuesday night the positive effect of extra rest when a fresher Inverness beat St Johnstone 2-0.

As I mentioned in my preview for that game I hate backing sides at odds on in Scotland. Except Celtic of course. But I always get the feeling that Dundee United are underrated by the layers. Yes, they must be a nightmare to support due to their heartbreaking inconsistency, but for me they're the third best team in the nation behind Celtic and Aberdeen.

St Mirren have had a god awful season. The appointment of Tommy Craig looked bizarre at the time and turned out to be a match made in hell. 16 defeats out of 22 this season in the Premiership is more than any other side and on home turf they've picked up just one point from 33 available. Pass me the sick bucket!

Dundee United have lost five of their 11 away league matches this season which is hardly encouraging but a win at Hamilton last Monday night was very positive. Jackie McNamara's side have smashed up St Mirren 3-0 on both occasions the sides met this campaign.

So I'm looking at BetVictor's 17/20 on Dundee United and I'm weighing it up. The positives are that Dundee Utd are a better side, they've had five days extra rest and their opponents have no home wins to their name all league season, oh and they've also beaten them 3-0 at the St Mirren stadium.

Negatives? United are very inconsistent, they've failed to win six of their 11 away league games this season and the Buddies might just be charged up after that late win on Saturday.

I'll stick with my rule and avoid playing at odds on and instead get involved at the much fatter price of 13/5 that United win by exactly one goal. Weighing up all the positives and negatives posited above I can see that kind of result occurring. Three of their last four wins have been by the odd goal.