There’s no sugar-coating it.
Wednesday night was a massive, massive hammer blow for Dundee.
The Premiership season has a lot of football left to be played and Dundee are just one point behind St Johnstone at the bottom of the table but the importance of the St Mirren match was obvious.
It would have been an enormous psychological boost to go above Saints by winning their game in hand against a team who had been struggling of late.
Losing in stoppage time was such a kick in the guts.
🗣️"A really painful one to take but we can't argue too much with the result."
Dundee assistant Simon Rusk reflects on a late defeat to St Mirren and admits the club are now in a race to avoid finishing bottom👇 pic.twitter.com/QJQIcvZrgE
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) March 9, 2022
And the timing of the goal does matter.
The Dundee players and management will say the right things but late, late goals in crucial games like that one do have a bigger impact on morale than one in the middle of a match.
What they can’t allow themselves to think – and the same goes for St Johnstone, who have had their share of body-blows this season as well – is that everything is going against them.
The statistic of only one shot on target in the entire game is a real worry.
If there was ever a match when Dundee should have been on the front foot, it was this one.
I know that they are suffering with Covid, illness and injury issues and I’m not making myself out to be a technical genius.
But Mark McGhee has preferred one up top since he’s taken over and I’d have liked to have seen a more attacking formation in midweek.
Having a cup game next is maybe no bad thing to give Dundee the chance to regroup and hopefully get players back before their next league match.
It’s the nearest thing they’ll get to a free hit and they’ll be hoping Rangers are tired after playing in the Europa League.
The team need to do something to lift the Dundee fans.
Put simply – they’re fed up.
And that goes for a lot of things at the club.
Mark McGhee isn’t long in the door but this is probably already looking like a tougher job than the one he thought he was signing up for.
It will be interesting to see if Aaron Hickey and Ryan Fraser are in Steve Clarke’s next Scotland squad.
Fairly or unfairly there’s a lot of chat surrounding Hickey and his willingness to play for the under-21s now that he’s a regular in Serie A.
Teenagers with most minutes played in Europe's top 5 leagues this season:
🏴Aaron Hickey – 1968 minutes
🏴Tino Livramento – 1905
🏴Jude Bellingham – 1895
🇩🇪Florian Wirtz – 1836
🇺🇸Joe Scally – 1628
🇺🇸Gianluca Busio – 1617
🇪🇸Gavi – 1481
🇮🇹Destiny Udogie – 1460
🇪🇸Yeremi Pino – 1450 pic.twitter.com/YlgZf7z6sW— Football Talent Scout – Jacek Kulig (@FTalentScout) March 7, 2022
My guess is he’s probably been told he’s getting called up.
Fraser is a much tougher one, though.
He’s got a reputation for dropping out but he’s another player in-form.
You can be sure Steve will be sounding out some of his senior players.
Because protecting squad morale is far more important than one man.
If he does get picked, you’d imagine it will be last chance saloon.
I’m still not sure if I’m a fan of the Premiership split or not.
But what I am sure about is this year’s battle to make the top half of the table when it happens is the best ever.
One point separating six sides is going to throw up great drama.
Just don’t ask me to predict who’s going to come out on top!
Simon Rusk addresses Dundee’s need for more ‘fight’ and admits late St Mirren defeat was ‘painful’
