Aidan Connolly: I was singled out by angry Celtic fans just like Josh Meekings

Aidan Connolly has painful memories of last month’s penalty incident.

Aidan Connolly knows better than most what Josh Meekings went through last week.

The Dundee United winger was one of three Tangerines publicly slammed by Celtic after their hard-fought Scottish Cup clash at Tannadice last month.

Accused of diving to win a penalty by Ronny Deila, Connolly was then

lambasted by Anthony Stokes, who declared himself shocked retrospective punishment was not handed down.

Nadir Ciftci and Calum Butcher were also targeted for criticism by the Hoops, who won the replay 4-0.

The similarities between Connolly’s

situation and that faced by the Inverness Caley Thistle defender whose Scottish Cup semi-final handball was missed by the officials only to be highlighted by the Hoops are clear.

But the United star insists he never let the Celts’ sniping get on top of him and he doesn’t intend to start now.

“I was one of the guys Celtic singled out after the first game, so last Sunday brought back memories,” Connolly admitted.

“After that, their fans got on my back, and I got booed in the replay.

“But it didn’t get on top of me. I got booed so what? You just play your own game and see what happens, and that’s what I’ll do today too.

“Celtic made comments about a few of our boys during our run of games. A lot of people think that gets to players, but you’d be surprised. Most aren’t bothered.

“You don’t hear the booing and you forget about the build-up. During the game, you’re just focused on getting the job done.

“It will be the same today. What has happened before doesn’t matter.

“We’ll work hard for each other and hopefully that will see us through.”

Hope is all well and good, but Connolly insists there’s something more impressive in United’s locker belief.

“We believe we can beat them,” he said. “We’ve beaten them at Tannadice already this season. That gives us belief as does the last game here.

“After playing them six times already, we know more than most about how they play.

“And even though we’ve taken a few defeats, I think we can win, especially at Tannadice.”

A victory is something the Tangerines could do with. Just four wins in 14 Premiership outings during 2015 tells its own story.

But he insists United are still looking up the table and their horizons stretch beyond domestic borders.

“If we beat Celtic, you never know,” he said.

“We’ve still got belief in ourselves. In training we look really sharp.

“But obviously we haven’t put a decent run of results together in a while.

“That’s something we need to do, ideally starting against Celtic.

“We’re still looking up the way, without a doubt. We’re aiming for Europe.

“To get there would be amazing for all of us. And for me, at 19, it would be a dream come true. That’s my ambition for the season.”