Hartley: St Mirren deserved victory

DUNDEE boss Paul Hartley admits his “team of individuals” were beaten by the better team on Saturday.

The Dark Blues were the shock exit of the William Hill Scottish Cup fourth round as they were beaten 2-0 to Championship basement boys St Mirren at Dens Park.

An opportunist first-half strike from former-Dee John Sutton put the Buddies ahead 25 minutes in before defender Jack Baird sealed victory just after the break.

Dundee had their chances, mostly in the first period, but Hartley admits the Paisley side were deserving winners.

He said: “We had a couple of chances but we just didn’t play the way that we can play, we just weren’t on it on Saturday.

“It was a team of individuals, it wasn’t a team that was collective on Saturday, they were individuals and there were too many mistakes.”

The fixture was Dundee’s first after returning from the winter break — a break they started brimming with confidence after a 3-0 win over St Johnstone but, despite naming the same team as that day, Hartley admitted his side “were well off it” this time around.

“I wouldn’t use the winter break as an excuse, no way because we’ve been back the last two weeks and trained really hard, trained well,” Hartley added.

“Training has been excellent, the players have looked good, they’ve looked sharp but they just weren’t on it, they were well off it.

“We were beaten by the better team.

“That’s hard to take because we’ve actually been quite good at home, our home form’s been good but for us to put on a performance like that is just unacceptable.”

For St Mirren, it was a bright day in what has been the darkest of seasons — they prop up the Ladbrokes Championship and have picked up just two league wins all season.

Their manager Jack Ross said: “We’ll savour this one but it’s about moving on.

“The next match is always the most important in football.

“That’s what we believe and I do have faith in the players to build on this. “That has to be the aim. “It has been difficult at times but we’ve not been playing that badly.

“This win should give us confidence for the rest of the league campaign.”

Kosta Gadzhalov beats St Mirren’s John Sutton to the ball but, too often, Dundee were second best in their 2-0 defeat to the Buddies on Saturday.