Scottish Football Tips | Willie Duncan's NAP | 5th November 2016

WILLIE Duncan (@Willie_Duncan) takes on an out of form side in his weekend Scottish NAP for us.

Queen Of The South v Dundee United | Saturday 15:00

We waited…and waited…and waited…but, in the end, it was all worthwhile because Raith Rovers scored a stoppage-time winner against Queen of the South at Stark’s Park to deliver a much-needed winning NAP for me last weekend.

It’s not that I want to kick Gavin Skelton’s side when they are down, but I can’t resist siding with Dundee United when they travel to Palmerston Park to face Queens in the Scottish Championship on Saturday afternoon.

United looked shell-shocked in the early stages of the campaign, almost as if they couldn’t believe that they were playing their football in the second tier of Scottish football and, to some extent, the Doonhamers took advantage of that, emerging from Tannadice Park with a point on the opening day of the season.

That slumber continued for quite some time for the team from Tayside but a gritty display that in a 2-1 win against Greenock Morton back in September appears to have got the juices flowing for Ray McKinnon’s men

Since then, the men from Tannadice have gone five matches without defeat, winning four of them and it was the nature of their hard-fought 1-0 win against Falkirk last weekend that made me think that McKinnon’s team might just have the stomach for a fight after all.

The goals have hardly flowed and, given that four of United’s last five fixtures have seen fewer than three goals scored, I must admit that I was tempted to take the 19/20 quote on offer for that trend to continue in Dumfries, especially given that Queens have failed to find the net inside normal time in any of their last seven games.

The tasty 6/4 quote offered by Bet365, however, for an away win is one that is too tempting to turn down; Queens are out of confidence, out of luck and out of goals, while United have finally learned the vital art of grinding out results.

McKinnon’s men have won five of their last six games – four of them by a single goal margin. It might not be pretty at Palmerston, but if United pick up three points, they won’t care – and we won’t either.