Such a revival never looked likely only a fortnight ago. Despite all the background uncertainty, Dundee United are back to where they aspire to be – at the summit of the Ladbrokes Championship.

United have duly risen in the face of adversity following former manager Ray McKinnon’s recent dismissal by securing consecutive wins over Dumbarton and now joint leaders St Mirren to ensure their pursuit of the title is once more on course.

Rejuvenated under the leadership of caretaker boss Laurie Ellis, they swept St Mirren aside at Tannadice on Saturday courtesy of goals in either half from Mark Durnan and Sam Stanton, rendering Adam Eckersley’s stoppage-time volley nothing more than a consolation.

The Tayside club expect to appoint a new manager this week with former Hearts gaffer Csaba Laszlo still the front-runner for the vacant post and, even with that matter dragging on longer than anticipated, they haven’t allowed their on-field focus to drift.

Scott Fraser, their outstanding player throughout this victory, is urging his team-mates to proceed and claim that precious top spot all to themselves now that only goal difference separates them from Jack Ross’ Saints side.

“I had mentioned that it would only take a matter of two games to get back to where we feel we belong, “ smiled Fraser afterwards.

“We’re back top of the league which is a great feeling. So now we’re there it’s up to us to go and maintain the level of performance we’ve shown in the past two weeks. We have to make sure we stay there.

“I think it’s been well documented the squad we’ve got. We’re just trying to find the right balance that works for us.

Hopefully we’ve found that now and we can kick on. We all know the importance of what we’re trying to achieve.”

United couldn’t have imagined having such a barrowload of chances against their Paisley visitors with Durnan’s 11th minute header from Fraser’s free-kick putting them on their way to this victory, before Stanton’s clinching 80th minute strike all but sealed matters.

Fraser cited their overall dominance of the Buddies as proof that they have most certainly got what it takes to claim outright pole position in the weeks ahead.

He added: “I think you saw throughout the game that we were the better team. We had more chances and better chances too. That was probably the most chances I’ve ever had in one game, so I’m hoping that within a couple of weeks my sharpness will come back in front of goal. It was just a matter of how many we could score. Obviously they got a goal at the end, but it’s another good result with a quality performance to go with it.”

The Tannadice club have had to deal with no shortage of off-field uncertainty recently and Fraser, 22, is of the belief that much of the praise must go to interim manager Ellis who had been McKinnon’s assistant until his departure.

He said: “I think with the size of club that we are, the pressure is always on from the start of the season. Obviously the new manager will come in with his new ideas and whatever. As players, that’s something we just have to wait and see in terms of who comes in. We’re happy working with Laurie just now. Long may that continue for us.

I think a lot of the credit has to go to go to Laurie. He’s given us a lot of freedom in training. It has been class for the past two weeks.

“It’s just the atmosphere that Laurie has managed to build which has been so positive. Hopefully the fans are back on side now as well. They had a right to be not happy before. We know things hadn’t been good enough before.

“Anyone who has seen us in the past two weeks, though, will have seen the work-rate from all the boys. I even had a few nice tweets about my own work-rate! That’s usually stuff that I don’t get.

“Laurie has got all the boys fighting for him and I think the fans can see how hard we were fighting as a team.”

Meanwhile, Saints scorer Eckersley admits the Paisley visitors had only themselves to blame for such a paltry performance on Tayside.

Eckersley said: “We came here as league leaders looking to put a marker down. But we weren’t at our best.

“We spoke about it in the dressing-room. They looked a bit hungrier than us and we can’t be having that. It’s a difficult league to win so you have to go to every stadium in this division and pick up points.

“We can’t just pick and choose where and when we want to turn it on. My goal didn’t matter in the end so we just have to bounce back in our next game.”