Wilkie himself complained about it after Saturday’s defeat at Tynecastle and now his manager has revealed his frustration about the situation.

“Lee is a big strong boy, who can look after himself, but, because he’s is so big, we feel he gets penalised a lot when he wins the ball fairly,” said Craig.

“That’s bad enough, but, when referees also seem to take the view that, just because of his size it’s OK for defenders to grab handfuls of his shirt at our set-pieces, it becomes very frustrating.

“Against Motherwell, Craigan was doing it when Lee was in their box and, at Hearts, it happened every time with the boy Zaliukas.”

What’s even more annoying for United is that last summer every club was told there would be a clampdown on defenders’ conduct at set-pieces.

“After the referees said that, we even changed our system to zonal so we would not get penalised, but there has been no clampdown and the likes of Lee are suffering because of it.

“And it’s not as if it’s the hardest thing to spot — if a player is not even looking at the ball when it is coming over, there is a fair chance he is about to foul the man he’s marking.”

For the second week running, Wilkie is battling to recover from a dead leg in time to face Rangers at Tannadice on Sunday. He suffered one against Motherwell and then, similarly, hurt his other leg in training at the start of the week, though his boss expects him to recover.

“Maybe it’s because he has suffered much worse in the past and does not want to miss any games, but he is the type who manages to play with injuries that would keep others out,” added Craig.

Disappointed as he still is about Tuesday, today Alex remained in bullish mood about his team’s chances.

“It was a game I could not see us losing and, over the 90 minutes, we created enough chances and had enough possession to win easily,” he said.

“That in itself gives me some hope. If we hadn’t performed or had any opportunities I would be concerned, but, if we keep making the chances, we should win games.

“Then it will be about seeing if things elsewhere have gone our way — that’s not ideal, but I am certainly not giving up.”

And Alex knows his players have exactly the same attitude.

“Whether the boys have played well or not, at no time this season could I have been critical of their approach.

“Every game they give all they’ve got and I know that will continue right up to the end of the season.”

The gaffer also took time today to thank the fans for their support. At times this season they’ve been criticised for booing at home games and a section of the travelling support let the club down with their behaviour at the Scottish Cup quarter-final at Dumfries last month.

Alex, though, believes the backing the majority have been giving the team has been superb.

“A couple of my mates from through in the west were in with them on Tuesday and, afterwards, they told me they could not believe how good our support was, but that’s the way they’ve been most weeks,” he added.

“Recently, there seems to have been an away game every five minutes, but they’ve kept travelling in numbers and got right behind the boys.

“I know it will be the same again at Morton on Saturday and we’ll be doing all we can to send them back up the road after a win.”

On the fitness front, midfielder Scott Robertson is continuing to make good progress and remains on course to recover from his torn hamstring in time to feature again this season.

And now they aim to win again, with Derek stating, “We want a victory to help the momentum towards our Scottish Cup semi-final against Rangers or Partick.

“Although we lost 1-0 on that pitch earlier this season, we’ve generally done OK on it. It’s not an ideal surface, but we have an artificial training surface at McDiarmid Park and the boys are used to playing on that type of pitch.”

Goran Stanic was taken off hurt in the 1-1 home divide against Dunfermline, but will be OK, while Rocco Quinn was expected to be back in training today.