There appeared to be no imminent problems for Tony Mowbray's side when the former Tangerines midfielder scored the opener from the spot in the 71st minute after being felled by United skipper Darren Dods.

However, with seven minutes remaining, Jon Daly, on for Damian Casalinuovo to play his first competitive game since April following a knee injury, headed the equaliser from Danny Swanson's corner.

Dods popped up in the dying seconds of normal time to make amends for his earlier indiscretion when he headed past Lukasz Zaluska to give the home side an historic win.

While Celtic passed up the chance to move above Rangers to the top of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League, United moved on to 22 points, equal with third-placed Hibernian and three behind the Ibrox men.

The travelling Hoops fans booed their side off the park for the second game in succession - their 3-3 draw against bottom side Falkirk in their last outing eliciting similar discontent - but Robson appealed for calm

He said: "Fans pay a lot of money to come and watch us but I think we have put in some decent performances although maybe not against Falkirk in the last game.

"But Dundee United was always going to be a hard place to go to.

"When I was at United we almost beat Barcelona, so that's how hard it is to go there.

"We deserved to get something from the game, maybe even the three points but it is still positive at the club.

"The boys are all happy and on another day, we could have won two or three nil.

"So it's not all doom and gloom.

"We are ready for the next game and we can't wait to go and win it.

"You don't win anything at this stage of the season. We came unstuck but we will keep going."

Celebrating United fans sang "we're going to win the league" as the teams escaped up the tunnel and manager Craig Levein, who must have cemented his place as favourite for the vacant Scotland job with the result, is reluctant to curtail the mounting enthusiasm at Tannadice.

"I don't want to dampen anyone's enthusiasm, that's not my job," he said.

"We have a group of players that are going along quite nicely and the last thing they need is a tug on the reins from me.

"I will let them canter along and see what happens.

"I don't know if we can push (for the title) but I'm not gong down the dressing room to tell them that we can't.

"I feel that we have been improving against the Old Firm.

"We have managed to beat Rangers a few times and we have been very unfortunate a few times against Celtic.

"But the players have grown in confidence and they are not frightened of anybody.

"It doesn't mean that we are going to win every time, far from it, and we need to play better than we did today in the future to take points from either of the Old Firm."