\n<\/p>\n
Ten-man Dundee United survived intense late pressure from fourth-tier Spartans to reach the Scottish Cup quarter-finals for the first time in four years.<\/b><\/p>\n
Centre-half Iurie Iovu was sent off after only 12 minutes for a bodycheck on Cammy Russell.<\/p>\n
But captain Ross Graham headed the hosts ahead before the break and Amar Fatah added the hosts’ second.<\/p>\n
Mark Stowe’s deflected strike with 12 minutes remaining gave Spartans late hope, but a tiring United held on to secure a visit to Premiership rivals Falkirk in the last eight.<\/p>\n
In a double blow for the part-time Edinburgh visitors, who had been looking to reach the quarter-finals for the first time, they were overtaken at the top of League 2 after East Kilbride’s thumping 6-1 thumping of hosts Elgin City.<\/p>\n
United manager Jim Goodwin was wary of a repeat of the cup exit that still gives him nightmares – when sixth-tier Darvel ousted his Aberdeen side.<\/p>\n
His fears would have intensified when Iovu was shown a straight red card by referee Grant Irvine after the centre-half halted a mazy run by the flying Russell 25 yards from goal.<\/p>\n
United argued that it was not a clear goalscoring opportunity, but with no VAR in operation, there was no chance of the decision being overturned.<\/p>\n
Spartans had looked comfortable on the ball and, if anything, were the better side until that moment.<\/p>\n
However, the greater quality of the 10 men gradually started to take control and centre-half Graham lost his marker and rose to head home Will Ferry’s corner at the front post.<\/p>\n
Spartans started the second half brightly and defender Ayrton Sonkur headed wide only for United to stretch their lead with a breakaway goal as winger Fatah flicked over goalkeeper Paddy Martin.<\/p>\n
United counterpart Ashley Maynard-Brewer had to parry clear a powerful drive from midfielder James Craigen before being beaten by substitute forward Stowe’s looping drive.<\/p>\n
However, Spartans were unable to repeat the victory in their only previous meeting with United – in the League Cup in July 2023 – but had done Dougie Samuel proud in his 5000th day in charge of the visitors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Ten-man Dundee United survived intense late pressure from fourth-tier Spartans to reach the Scottish Cup quarter-finals for the first time in four years. Centre-half Iurie Iovu was sent off after only 12 minutes for a bodycheck on Cammy Russell. But captain Ross Graham headed the hosts ahead before the break and Amar Fatah added the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}