Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
George Cran
Weekend victories can make it a successful start for Dee and Utd
AFTER yet another international break breather, it’s back to the crunch of Championship action in the city.
This coming weekend brings an end to the first quarter of the league campaign – a great time to take stock of where Dundee and Dundee United are this season.
Up until the last round of fixtures, it would all have been about how far ahead of the Dark Blues the Tangerines were.
Their defeat and Dundee’s subsequent victory cut the gap to six points, however, with the coming fixtures having the possibility to see the difference cut even further.
Even after all these years of covering football, it still surprises me how quickly football can change.
Despite that, however, one bad result won’t alter my prediction of Robbie Neilson’s side winning the Championship, come the end of the campaign.
The Tangerines have looked untouchable at times at Tannadice, knocking in 18 goals in just four matches at home with Lawrence Shankland getting 10 of them.
He is the difference for me between the rest of the league, that ability to snatch a goal out of the blue and turn a game United might have lost last season into a victory.
What they have shown is a vulnerability on the road.
George Cran Column
Losing to Ayr was understandable with the Honest Men level with them at the top but the Alloa performance was a shock.
If they can put that firmly behind them this weekend with a good win at Palmerston against Queen of the South, I’ll be quite happy with my prediction.
Seven wins and two defeats from the first nine games is title form, so if they get near that for the last three quarters then promotion will be there for the Tannadice outfit.
Dundee, meanwhile, are beginning to show there’s a bit of life in a title charge at Dens Park.
It was always going to take a bit of time for the Dark Blues to gel their new squad together at the start of this season.
This weekend against Partick is a key chance to show the worst of that is behind them and begin to put some momentum together.
Grab a victory to put them on four wins and three draws from the opening nine isn’t the worst.
They’ll expect to up that when the team gets into full flow as the season goes on.
Like United, they also have a matchwinner in Graham Dorrans.
The clubs are in different situations but there’s one huge similarity – fail to win this weekend and the moans will begin around the longsuffering supports of both clubs.