There’s a train of thought that goes for loan players like John O’Sullivan, Dundee being relegated would not be the end of the world.
Whatever happens, come the summer, he’ll be heading back to parent club Blackpool and events at Dens will be no more than a brief memory.
Suggest that to the Irishman and he might just throttle you because even the thought of being part of a team that went down leaves him distraught.
And starting with a young brother back home in Dublin, he can give a list of strong reason as to why he’s busting a gut to make sure, when he leaves Dens in a month or so, the Dark Blues will remain a Premiership outfit.
“I’ve a little brother, Tadhg, he’s nine. He gets upset every time we lose,” he explained.
“I have to phone him after all the games and he watches them. I ring him and assure him that we will keep going.
“He’s a big football fan. Whatever team I play for he’s the biggest fan and he probably knows our whole squad now.
“He knows who we are playing every week and, if we lose, he is distraught.
“And I know the fans are hurting and they have been supporting us a lot. We owe them.
“Since I came here, the support has been excellent and they’ve been great to me, I don’t want to let them down.
“Then there’s this club and the manager brought me here. I was playing at Blackpool but I was coming on in games and it was stop-start.
“I came here to play regular football and Dundee and the manager has given me that chance, so I’m grateful. He brought me here to do a job and, in my mind, we can still achieve that.”
Last but not least for O’Sullivan is the matter of professional pride. For him, relegation would represent an unacceptable first.
“This goes down on our CVs and when people see you’ve lost an amount of games and been relegated they don’t want you.
“I’ve never been relegated in my whole life and I don’t want to get relegated. Nobody in that dressing-room does either.
“So, I don’t understand when people say they are on loan and they don’t care. We are playing for our futures, for the fans, for our families and ourselves.”
Three points adrift going into the five post-split games, the battle for survival resumes at St Johnstone tomorrow.
For O’Sullivan, the who or where is not important. Neither is the manner in which a win is achieved, just so long as Dundee get it.
“We will have a big support at St Johnstone and that’s great but away or home it doesn’t matter. It’s one of five games we have to try to win and we would play them all away if we had to because all that matters is the results.
“It doesn’t matter who we play. We could be playing Celtic, anyone, it’s about winning.”
Despite a run of seven defeats, O’Sullivan remains convinced Dundee can get out of the mire.
He believes the quality and attitude of the squad means safety is a realistic goal.
“Everyone is writing us off. I’m hearing things and people are texting me to say we are probably gone but I don’t believe that whatsoever.
“We have five games against teams we’ve shown we can compete against so it’s in our hands. We don’t need this or that to go our way. If we can get three, four or five wins then we do it. So long as that’s the case we will keep fighting.”
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