Dundee United boss Micky Mellon believes his players deserve praise for giving themselves a top-six chance.

But Mellon will not let up in his quest for improvement and urged his team to seal the deal.

United are two points off sixth-placed St Mirren in the Scottish Premiership with three games left until the split, the first of which takes place at Kilmarnock on Saturday.

Mellon has refused to put high expectations of league finishes on his team in their first top-flight campaign in five years but he will continue to demand full commitment to improve.

When asked whether he is using the top-six chance as motivation, Mellon said: "I wouldn't start shouting about that. What I would say, and I like to deal with facts, the fact we are talking about this with three games to go, to know we have the opportunity if we perform to get to the top six, is a good place to be. But we have got to go and seal the deal now.

"And if we don't seal the deal we will say that we weren't good enough to get in the top six.

"But if you look at where we were at, we should be pleased, with the experience we have in the group, that we are even talking about this.

"But it's about finishing it off and showing we have the minerals to do the job.

"So we won't take our eye off what is important, and that is getting ready in training, making sure we don't take our foot off the gas.

"We don't give them an inch, we don't give any of them an inch. It's all about getting better, and that's what we will do.

"If that's good enough, and we keep doing that, then we should give ourselves a good opportunity.

"That's all it is, an opportunity, but the players deserve a pat on the back. They have done brilliant to even be talking about that but let's seal the deal.

"The three games are going to be huge. Everybody is jockeying for position and it's probably going to go the wire. Every game will be important."