Martin O’Neill made one change as the champions attempted to return to the top of the Bank of Scotland Premier League with victory at Tannadice.
Stanislav Varga recovered from a mystery illness to replace Stephane Henchoz in the only change to the starting X1 which won at Inverness Caledonian Thistle on Wednesday while Chris Sutton was handed a place on the bench after a hamstring problem.
But the Glasgow giants were bracing themselves for a backlash from the bottom club after the sacking of manager Ian McCall on Monday and interim-boss Gordon Chisholm made two changes from the team which crashed to Kilmarnock last weekend.
Derek McInnes and James Grady were relegated to the bench with recalls for Mark Kerr and Barry Robson.