Mellon, who believes McInnes "did a terrific job at Aberdeen", will keep his focus on his own side who sit in eighth place but due to inferior goal difference to fellow top-six challengers St Mirren an St Johnstone, are highly unlikely to make the top half of the table.

The United boss said: "The difficult thing is you don't know if someone is going to come in and change the way they play.

"They obviously had a pattern for pretty much most of the season and you would understand what it would be at this stage.

"So with someone new, you don't know if they are going to change that.

"One thing that doesn't change is the principles of how we play.

"I keep speaking about that all the time, what I want Dundee United to achieve when they have the football and what I want to achieve when the other team has the football. So that won't change.

"I can only control what I do, me and my team. We will go out and try to be the best version of ourselves.

"I can't control what Aberdeen do, what I can affect is what we do.

"So I won't really concern myself about that too much, I just know I have enough to think about with getting my group right and I look forward to the challenge of Aberdeen at the weekend.

"Aberdeen is always a big game, it give us the  opportunity to have a crack at one of the top end team to see where we are up to."