Charlie Adam insists nothing is won in January despite Dundee missing the chance to cut the gap to leaders Hearts after a “frustrating” 1-1 draw at Arbroath.
The Dark Blues kicked off the Championship’s weekend card at Gayfield on Friday night but were unable to add to their run of three consecutive wins.
Their previous outing was a morale-boosting 3-1 victory over the Jambos and to make the disappointment of dropping two points sting even more, Robbie Neilson’s men suffered a surprise home defeat to Raith Rovers yesterday.
Hearts remain seven points ahead of Dundee, leaving Adam and team-mates to rue a number of missed chances in the first half at Arbroath that could have seen them cut the deficit to five.
Danny Mullen cracked the bar when one-on-one with the goalkeeper while Osman Sow had an effort well saved by Derek Gaston in two of their biggest missed opportunities after Adam had opened the scoring from the penalty spot.
The Red Lichties improved in the second half and got themselves level through Ricky Little’s header in the 65th-minute and had chances themselves before Adam saw a late cross headed off the line in stoppage time.
The overall feeling, however, was disappointment at letting the first-half lead slip.
“If you’re drawing games, of course it makes it easier for other teams,” said Adam.
“But there are still plenty of games to go and plenty of ups and downs to come before the end of the season.
“We’ll see what happens, nothing is won now.
“Come May, we’ll see what happens.
“If we are good enough in the end then great, if not we’ll be in the play-offs and will look to go that route.”
He added: “If you take your chances, you win football matches.
“It’s not just the strikers, it’s other players as well and we have to do better at set-plays.
“It’s a free header from their smallest player. That’s a bad one to take.”
‘Don’t feel too sorry for ourselves’
Adam admits the performance from Dundee wasn’t at the level they’d shown recently as they looked to overtake Dunfermline in second place.
Despite the disappointment, the point takes their unbeaten run to eight games and the Dens skipper has urged his team-mates not to be too downhearted ahead of their match against Ayr on Tuesday night.
“The aim at the start of the game was to get into second place and we let that slip,” he added.
“It’s tough but we’ve got to try and pick ourselves up, don’t feel too sorry for ourselves.
“It is frustrating because we are on a good run but we didn’t play well against Bonnyrigg and then we had a gap.
“Frustrating but it’s another point on the board.
“Fair play to Arbroath, they made it hard for us and it is a difficult place to come.
“We are frustrated and disappointed to lose the goal from a set-play.
“We’ll dust ourselves down and we go again Tuesday against Ayr which is another tough game, it’s a challenge but one we relish.”
Winning run needed
The dropped points bring an end to Dundee’s run of straight league victories which ticked over to three after that victory over Hearts at the start of January.
The Jambos themselves have been on a streak of five and three victories already this season and Adam expects it to take a longer run if they are to have any hope of reeling in the leaders.
“It’ll take more than three wins in a row, it’ll take seven or eight if you want to win a title,” he said.
“But we’re not thinking of that, we’re going to dust ourselves down from Friday.
“That was a sore one for us to take. We lost a goal to a set-play and we never played to the level we have done recently but we did enough to win the game.”