Limp Dee crash out

PLAYERRATINGS Dark Blues shocked by St Mirren in Scottish Cup

DUNDEE got what they deserved from Saturday’s match against St Mirren as they were unceremoniously dumped out of the Scottish Cup.

The Dark Blues were surefire favourites to knock the Championship strugglers aside ahead of the match but missed first-half chances and a limp second half saw the Buddies sail into the fifth round.

St Mirren have been the disaster story of Scottish football all season, languishing at the foot of the second tier and staring relegation to League 1 squarely in the face but Saturday showed there’s still life in them yet.

They’ve only managed two league wins all season but were grateful to accept the gift of a cup shock at Dens Park.

That’s because the defeat was all of Dundee’s making.

Early on, the home side looked bright in attack, if nervy in defence — a back line that was on top form in their last match, a fine 3-0 win over St Johnstone.

The break may well have interrupted Dundee’s flow coming when it did but nobody from the club was making any excuses after the match.

The shots were flying in early on — Marcus Haber had a clear sight of goal after five minutes only to fire against the post before Faissal El Bakhtaoui and Craig Wighton tried their luck and then Cammy Kerr brought a fine save from St Mirren’s new keeper Billy O’Brien, on loan from Manchester City.

The visitors themselves l ooked dangerous going forward with Stevie Mallan always a threat and the pacy Kyle McAllister and Lewis Morgan on the wings causing problems.

Dundee’s defence, particularly the central pair of Kosta Gadzhalov and Julen Etxabeguren never l ooked comfortable all day.

With 24 minutes on the clock that discomfort presented a real problem as Gadzhalov’s attempted clearance fell straight to Mallan.

He tried to get past Paul McGowan only for the ball to ricochet kindly for John Sutton.

The set-up was pure luck but it fell perfectly and the former Dens man found the bottom corner.

Just over 10 minutes later, Dundee should have been level — from a corner, the ball was cut back to Kevin Holt whose cross perfectly picked out the head of Haber but the Canadian, to the surprise of everybody in the ground and probably himself, headed wide from inside the six-yard box.

Haber had another effort well saved before the break and the Dark Blues probably had the better of the first half.

You certainly couldn’t say that about the second, however.

Five minutes after the break another bit of misfortune struck as Wighton slipped while trying to clear from a corner, allowing Mallan to cut the ball back for Jack Baird to make it 2-0.

Dundee had been caught with a sucker punch and, despite throwing on Danny Williams and Michael Duffy and pushing men forward, they were knocked out.

The two subs almost combined with 15 minutes to go but Williams couldn’t bundle in at the back post.

And that was all she wrote after the second goal — Dundee were poor and didn’t offer any encouragement that a fightback might happen.

That’s probably more worrying for the management than just the result alone.