DUNDEE United boss Ray McKinnon admits his men were not tuned in as they lost further ground to Ladbrokes Championship title rivals Hibernian.

McKinnon’s men were looking to bounce back from successive defeats to Dumbarton and Neil Lennon’s men when they faced Queen of the South on Saturday. United had led the division going into Christmas, but subsequent results have allowed their closest challengers to overtake them at the league’s summit. A 3-3 home draw at the weekend means United now trail by six points.

Simon Murray gave United an early lead but Queens hit back with goals from Stephen Dobbie, Joe Thomson and Dom Thomas. Scott Fraser netted for United before Murray’s late strike rescued a point.

The brace was the striker’s 10th and 11th goals of the season, his sixth and seventh of the Championship campaign so far. Though despite Murray’s second goal rescuing a point, McKinnon admits his team lacked focus after taking the lead early in the match.

He told ArabZone: “To surrender a 1-0 lead and then find yourselves 3-1 down is frustrating for me.

“We need to recognise why that happened. For me personally, I think it was because the guys were not mentally tuned in. I’ll need to get to the bottom of what that was the case.

“The guys have been brilliant for me this season but for some reason, maybe confidence is low, we’re going through a wee rocky patch. We’ll do our best to figure it out because we need everybody firing. When you’ve got five or six guys not firing it makes it very difficult.

“But we’ve taken a point from the game when we didn’t look like we were going to get one, so that is the only pleasing thing I can take from it.”