Falkirk will need to 'learn on the job' in Premiership, says boss John McGlynn ahead of Dundee United opener

Falkirk manager John McGlynn reckons Sunday’s Scottish Premiership opener against Dundee United represents a “good opportunity” for his newly-promoted side to get to a flyer in the top flight.

The Tannadice team played in Luxembourg on Thursday night in the UEFA Conference League and the Bairns boss is hoping that the short turnaround for this weekend’s opposition is something that his players can take advantage of in front of a sold-out home crowd as they raise the Championship winners’ flag following two successive SPFL title successes.

McGlynn rates Falkirk’s chances against Dundee United

Ahead of Falkirk’s first Premiership outing in 15 years, McGlynn said: "It's a good opportunity for us. Everyone's seen that Dundee United have been in Europe . The stats show that it's always a difficult task to do, to play on a Thursday night and go on a Sunday as well. We have to take full advantage of that. We have the home advantage here. We're going to have a sell-out crowd here, getting right behind the boys. Everything's gearing up very nicely. They play 3-4-3 and get more numbers in the middle. They’ll have long throws, they have tall players, we know what we are coming up against. We will start going out to play the way we play but recognise that they will have more numbers in the middle of the park if we don’t do something about that. We entertain. That is what we do. Defensively we will need to be better against teams in the top flight.”

The Bairns’ opener also marks a welcome return to the top flight for manager McGlynn, who previously was in the Tynecastle dugout with Hearts nearly 13 years ago. He has since taken a break from management, working with Brendan Rodgers at Celtic as an opposition analyst before eventually taking on the Raith Rovers top job. After missing out of promotion to the Premiership at Stark’s Park, he eventually become Falkirk boss, changing the club’s fortunes after mid-table League One finishes.

McGlynn proud of Falkirk’s Premiership ascent

"It was always an ambition to try and take a team up to the Premiership,” he said. “I nearly did it with Raith Rovers (in 2021, during a second spell) but now I've done it with Falkirk. So I think there's great reward and great satisfaction in having done that rather than me just going and getting another Premiership job. I've actually managed to take a team that was finishing fifth and sixth in League One and build a team. We were in League One for five years (before promotion in 2024) so to go from there to here, I'm quite proud of that.”

On being the underdogs in the top flight, McGlynn admitted that he wasn’t quite sure how his team would get on having been used to winning most weeks for the past couple of years.

He added: "It will be very interesting. It's very difficult to know how well we're going to do. It's all very much up in the air. We've got a team that are used to winning and have got momentum and they have a great team spirit. All these things are what you would take from a team who's won a league and go up. But we're nowhere near winning as many games (this season) and we're going to lose more games than we've done probably in the last three years, so we'll have to be aware of that. We're not going to be too critical. We'll need to learn on the job, so to speak, because not a lot of the players have played at that level. But they’ve been magnificent for me throughout my time here. We've brought in some who have and that's going to help us, but we'll need to stick together. We want to get off a good start and that will certainly give us a foundation to build on.”

Falkirk FC: Injury update and transfer news

Meanwhile, on the injury front, McGlynn confirmed that Sean Mackie will miss Sunday’s match while Gary Oliver should be available for selection. Coll Donaldson’s pelvic operation will see him out for a ‘few weeks still’ while the likes of Barney Stewart, Finn Yeats and Jamie Sneddon are out for the foreseeable.

On transfers, he revealed that Falkirk had missed out on one of his loan targets after the player had instead opted for a permanent transfer.

“A lot of frustration,” he said when asked about adding to his squad. “Nothing is imminent. We’ve had 100s of players put to us to but we want players who will make us better. We’ve negotiated with other clubs for a while (on loan deals). We missed out on on one that was unexpected - another club came in and offered money for a permanent deal. We are still waiting on the other one. We want to get that one done. Getting loan deals can be like that - a spanner can leave you picking up the pieces.”