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Dylan Tait is Dundee Utd vice captain as Jim Goodwin explains his pick for Ross Graham's deputy The United boss has been really impressed with his summer signing from Falkirk. Jim Goodwin has confirmed that Dylan Tait will be Dundee United’s vice captain going into the season. The summer signing will deputise when skipper Ross Graham is not selected. The former Falkirk players takes over the roll from Will Ferry, who has been the subject of a seven-figure bid from Czechia and is also being courted by the likes of Blackburn Rovers and Celtic. Goodwin, who sees his team kick-off against Rangers on Friday evening, said: “We want to have a number of leaders in the group. “Ross Graham is our club captain. If he is in the starting XI he will lead the team out. “Outwith that, I don’t think there needs to be any big announcement regarding it. “If Dylan is playing and Ross is not then he will wear the armband. “If Dylan is not playing then I have a whole host of other players who are more than capable of leading the team out. “Regardless of who has the armband, we want to have leaders all over the park because that mentality is really important. “We have guys like Jack Walton who has been captain for me in the past, Michael Forbes has been captain at all the teams he has been at and Northern Ireland under-21 skipper as well. “Bert Esselink has also been captain in the past. There are so many guys in the squad who are more than capable of being that guy in the dressing room. “The type of culture we are trying to create here, it doesn’t involved one voice. We want everybody to voice their opinions and lead by example.” The reason why Zac Sapsdord is back on form at Tannadice. Goodwin has been a long-term admirer of Tait. He first tried to sign him when he was at Alloa Athletic. Goodwin reckons it has been worth the wait to get the midfielder on-board. “Dylan has had a terrific few years at Falkirk,” the United boss confirmed. “He is a player I have known since way back in his Hibs’ days. “I spoke to Hibs about trying to take him to Alloa many years ago. He ended up going to Raith and did very well there. He was one we identified very early on last season. “He is someone who knows the Scottish games, suits the way we want to play in terms of trying to get our players on the ball and he is a very progressive midfielder. “He doesn’t just want to play safe passes, he also risks the ball at times. That is something we are trying to encourage, don’t worry about mistakes or overhitting a pass from time to time. Dylan does that naturally. “The impact he has made from day one in training has been excellent. I knew how good a player he was. “Sometimes you don’t realise how good they are until you are working with them day in and day out because you only see them for 90 minutes on a Saturday. “His personality and character, he knows when to get the head down and set the standards and he is also very well liked within the dressing room because of his bubbly spirit. “He has been a terrific signing and adds that bit of tenacity and aggression in the middle of the park. We have seen what he can bring to the group in a short space of time.” Fellow midfielder Emmanuel Agyei has also been backed to get up to his levels of last season. Goodwin admitted he is still going up through the gears after a shortened summer break due to his involved with Ghana ahead of the World Cup finals. His manager explained: “He has had a little bit less of a break to what most of the rest of group had. He was away with Ghana prior to the World Cup. “He came very close to getting into their World Cup squad. There is just a little bit of match sharpness amongst a lot of players in the group. That is all it boils down to. “It is getting back into it and getting that sharpness back. I have absolutely no concerns about the lad. He is only 21 and was one of the outstanding players in the league in the second half of last season. “So much so he got into that Ghana pre-World Cup group. There are no issues there. He is going to be a really important player for us in this campaign.” Get more Daily Record exclusives by signing up for free to Google’s preferred sources . Click HERE. Tune in to Hotline Live every Sunday to Thursday and have your say on the biggest issues in Scottish football and listen to Record Sport's newest podcast, Game On, every Friday for your sporting fix, all in bitesize chunks.