KIERAN FREEMAN admits a 'sickening' quickfire double from Rangers was a tough blow to take as Dundee United were left pointless on Sunday.
Liam Fox's side went into the Tannadice clash on the back of wins over Ross County and St Johnstone and performed well during a cagey first 45 minutes.
Steven Fletcher twice came close to breaking the deadlock and Liam Smith also spurned a decent chance as United dared to dream of a third successive Premiership win.
Those ambitions were derailed within minutes of the restart, though, as Fashion Sakala produced a terrific finish to put Rangers ahead and Malik Tillman clinched the points.
There was no way back for United after two goals in three minutes and Freeman knows Fox's side must regroup ahead of their trip to face Hibernian this weekend.
Freeman said: "We went in at half-time thinking that we’d done a good job. Even though it was 0-0, we’d actually done quite well.
"It was just sickening to lose two goals in such a short space of time. It pretty much killed the momentum that we had.
"There are still positives in there but at the end of the day we went out there to get points and we didn’t get any so it was an unsuccessful day.
"There were moments when we did well but we need to do more of that to get points on the board. That’s what we need to do next week.
"This shows that we still have a lot of work to do to climb the table. We weren’t really close to getting points against Rangers if we’re honest. In the second half, we were miles off it compared to them.
"But the first half showed that we are getting closer and it was certainly an improvement on earlier in the season in terms of our performances. We’re getting there but just need to go again."
