But Mellon has enjoyed every minute of his spell on Tayside and believes there is a bright future in store for his team, starting with Friday night's visit of Livingston.

"I love football and I really love watching my team perform at the minute," he said. "I'm loving watching their improvement and how they are attacking.

"I'm loving every day their attitude in training and their appetite to get better, so I'm looking forward to Friday.

"Without wishing my days away – which my old mam used to warn me about, 'Take your time Michael,' she'd say – but I am looking forward to Friday coming around because, and I may be biased being the manager, but I think Dundee United are quite an exciting team to watch.

"We try to do the things the fans interested in quick, hard-working, attacking football would want to see. We're trying to get consistently good at that but we're certainly heading rapidly in the right direction."