For Dundee to book a League Cup quarter-final place today they will have to end not just one but two hoodoos.
Much has been made of the club’s poor record in cups over the years – the Dark Blues have only made it to the last-eight or beyond on three occasions this century.
However, their recent record against Motherwell makes even worse reading.
Since three wins on the spin over the Steelmen in 2016/17 – including a 5-1 thrashing at Fir Park – Dundee have lost nine of the next 10 clashes between the two.
Their last encounter ended with ’Well winning 3-0 at Dens Park in front of a sparse crowd of just over 2,000.
This time there will be a far larger and more vociferous backing from the stands with capacity extended to 7,315 including 1,000 away supporters.
‘Get faith of the fans back’
And manager James McPake has challenged his players to get the home support behind them to relieve the disappointment of last week’s 6-0 defeat to Celtic.
“Any time when you’re at home, you fancy yourself. You have to have a right go,” he said.
“What we need to do is get the faith of these fans back with an energetic display.
“Motherwell are an established Premiership team who are strong and in your face so we need to match that.
“We believe have real dangers in our team who can hurt them, too.
“I’m looking forward to it because we’ll have over 7,000 in the ground and it will be proper Dens Park stuff.
“We need to start on the front foot to give the fans a reason to get off their seat.
“We saw against St Mirren they stayed with us despite the setbacks, we need to show a similar level.
“There haven’t been many cup runs here – I would have loved one here as a player.
“I always go back to the Aberdeen cup tie here where the place was full and it was a great cup-tie atmosphere.
“Scottish Cup, live on TV and we won the game, it was excellent.
“The place was rocking and you find there is a different atmosphere in the cups.”
Records there to be broken
Though Dundee’s record against Motherwell in the past few years makes dismal reading.
Manager McPake insists records are there to be broken and is backing his team to do just that.
“I don’t take much notice of records like that,” he added.
“I don’t know what our record against Kilmarnock was, before that our record against Raith wasn’t great.
“It’s all about what happens on the day. Games never play out the way record books say it will.
“This is a one-off cup-tie and we want to progress.
“I think we’ll see two teams going at each other trying to get through to the next round of the cup.”
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