Positives send Dee into biggest game of season

IT’S the biggest week of the season for Dundee.

St Mirren at home is coming into view this weekend.

Fifth place and European football is on the line.

That the Dark Blues are even in this position is testament to the brilliant work done by Tony Docherty and his players this season.

A lot of impressive stuff done.

What encourages me most is there is no sign of anybody at Dens Park saying the work is finished.

There’s no settling for anything.

They showed that against Celtic on Sunday.

You expect the Hoops to have the majority of possession but Dundee’s game plan worked really well.

They countered well and were dangerous when they got forward.

Set-pieces brought a lot of problems for Celtic. Owen Dodgson’s delivery was very good.

That’s been a positive route to goals for the Dark Blues all season and Celtic had to be at their best to keep the Dee at bay.

I also thought Amadou Bakayoko gave the Celtic centre-backs a really tough time up front.

He was very physical and I think Docherty and his team identified that the Hoops backline can be got at.

They can struggle at times if you put them under pressure and Bakayoko did that well.

He gave Dundee the foundation to push on.

The game, though, did end in defeat and Docherty was right to say his players should never be happy with that.

But they can go into these final four games with real belief.

Even looking at the two goals Celtic scored.

The first is a brilliant finish from James Forrest but there was a bit of luck in there with Kyogo’s touch to him. I’m certain it wasn’t intentional.

But take nothing away from the finish.

The second goal was Dundee’s own undoing rather than getting opened up by the league leaders.

Antonio Portales ended up being the one giving the ball away but Luke Mccowan’s pass didn’t do him any favours.

The Mexican tried to get out of trouble but Forrest read it and ended up with his second goal.

Hugely frustrating because Dundee had been so good in the second half.

And I felt sorry for Portales. I’m glad he could make up for that at the other end.

It was an avoidable goal, though, and that will frustrate Dundee and Docherty.

But it certainly won’t overshadow the hugely positive aspects of the performance.

Big positives to send them into the biggest match of the season.

I expect Dundee v St Mirren to be a very close contest this weekend.

The prize is huge and I hope we see two teams really going at each other.

But the Dark Blues go into this game with no pressure on them.

They have already overachieved this season.

Show no fear.

POSITIVE APPROACH: Dundee lost against Celtic but posed problems for the league leaders.