Settled back three breeds confidence - Carson

Goalkeeper Trevor Carson insists a settled back three has been key in Dundee's fine recent form.

The Dark Blues are four games unbeaten - including draws with Celtic and Rangers plus a derby win over United - before Saturday's Premiership visit of Hearts.

"If you've got a set team, it means one thing, you're doing really well and two, you've got no injuries," said Carson.

"You look at our run of results and we haven't until recently been able to string that three or four results together.

"We've won a couple, we've had a bad defeat and we've bounced back, which is great, it shows character, but we haven't been on that five or six games unbeaten run until recently.

"You can see it's breeding confidence in the defence and myself, of course it does.

"We've had that settled back three now for the last four games and you learn each other's games, little traits you've got and more than anything it breeds confidence and it can only be good for the squad.

"You see the lads coming back in training and that just lifts the levels, so we're in a good place, we've had that little run of injuries but we're over the other side of it now and we've got a really competitive squad."