Dee have to look to build on good work

AS you may have read in the Tele towards the end of last week, I was seriously worried about Dundee going into Saturday’s relegation battle with Partick Thistle.

I needn’t have been because the Dark Blues dominated from start to finish and were well worth the 3-0 win.

In fact, they should have won by another couple of goals.

And it was a massive victory for Neil McCann’s team, one that gives me plenty of encouragement for the rest of the season.

Their recent success over Rangers grabbed more headlines, but for me the win on Saturday and the one at Ross County a couple of weeks earlier were more important.

That’s because of that old addage in football — you have to beat the teams around you.

In the past couple of seasons, with the exception of Aberdeen, Dundee have actually done OK against the top teams.

Where they’ve struggled has been when coming up against those sides close to them in the table.

That was still the case earlier this season as they lost to both County and Thistle. Keep doing that and you are going to be in trouble.

Thankfully, McCann seems to have rectified the problem and a big bonus for him will be this month has not just seen Dundee take the points from those two, but do so in some style.

Five goals against them without reply, and after both games the opposition managers admitting the result was fair, has to give the players at Dens a big lift.

So does the fact they played very well on Saturday.

All season I’ve been hearing they are playing decent football, but have paid the price for missed chances at one end and silly mistakes at the other.

At the weekend they took those chances and cut out the errors, meaning they looked a very good team.

The aim now has to be to produce that kind of performance on a consistent basis.

They have a wee gap to the bottom now and even a decent run over the next few games will almost certainly see it grow.

If that’s the case Dundee can be looking forward to a very good second half of the season.

Mark O’Hara powers away from Partick Thistle’s Jordan Turnbull in Saturday’s 3-0 win at Dens Park,