Dee season starts now

PLAYERRATINGS Six massive games to come for Hartley’s men

DUNDEE fans — forget everything that’s gone before. Your season starts on Saturday with the visit of Hamilton and will last six tense, probably at times tortuous, games.

Win most of them and the team will be playing in the Premiership again next term. Don’t, and it’s likely to be a case of Championship here we come.

The words aren’t his but that’s pretty much the message from Dark Blues boss Paul Hartley right now.

On Saturday he watched his team lose for a sixth straight game in a row.

He dismissed that stat and the 1-0 loss to Hearts at Tynecastle that leaves his team perched precariously just a point above the relegation play-off place.

Hartley was only i nterested i n looking forward and being positive about the battle — correction war — that lies ahead over the next month or so.

He was, probably, right to be thinking that way.

Whatever happens over those final six games, all against bottom-six teams, at the end of it there will be a post mortem of the season.

The report of it won’t make for pleasant reading. Twice now the team have lost six games in a row in the league.

Their record up to next week’s split will also show they’d lost more games than any other in the top flight.

And the loss of seven goals in a single home game against Aberdeen will also have to be mentioned.

All that, though, should be for late in May, once the final ball of 2016/17 has been kicked.

Right now, what’s important is finding a way of getting this beleaguered team winning again. As the performance at Tynecastle showed, there is work to be done on that score.

Like in the midweek defeat at Ross County, there was plenty of endeavour from the Dundee players.

After they conceded what proved to be the winner when Esmael Goncalves struck for the Jambos after 13 minutes, they also defended reasonably well.

Yes, it took a wonder save from Scott Bain to deny Arnaud Djoum a goal right on the stroke of half-time but, despite continuing to have the majority of possession in the second half, the home team seldom looked like adding to their lead.

Trouble was, over the entire 90 minutes, Dundee rarely looked like scoring either.

A Tom Hateley free-kick late in the first period was touched on to the post by Jack Hamilton but in truth that was a flighted ball looking for someone to get a touch and not a shot.

In the second period, sub Craig Wighton should have scored when he raced clear but pulled his shot wide.

Those moments apart, Hamilton in the Hearts goals was little more than a spectator and, in the coming weeks, that has to change. Dundee do have to be up for the fight, that’s for sure, but when they have the ball they must get back to doing something with it, be looking to create chances and have men who will take them.

And despite his miss at Tynecastle, young Wighton could be the one who can do that. When the team dropped all the way to the bottom by the end of October, his creativity and eye for a goal played a big part in their revival.

The work he put in when he came on for Henrik Ojamaa gave a hint he might be ready to do the same again.