Dundee and St Johnstone are in a two-way battle to avoid automatic relegation, adrift and alone at the bottom of the Premiership.
Both lost key matches against Livingston and Ross County on Saturday.
The Dark Blues, though, are in a real mess.
And much of it is of their own making.
Bitter taste
The reign of Mark McGhee and Simon Rusk as the Dundee management team is only two games old and there is plenty of time for them to save the day.
It must be said that none of the troubles the Dee face are of their making.
But they are charged with sorting out the mess they’ve been parachuted into.
The manner of their arrival and the sacking of James McPake, the horrendous timing and complete inability of John Nelms to read the room has given McGhee and Rusk a serious job.
Managing director Nelms is on the record saying the decision was made weeks before the axe actually fell on McPake.
Had they acted after the Ross County game, there would have been understanding. And maybe an acceptance of McGhee as replacement, coming in to help his pal Gordon Strachan in keeping the club up.
But to see a former club captain and real servant to Dundee chucked on the scrapheap with so little grace left a bitter taste in the mouth.
Not least because he’d led his side to an impressive victory at Hearts and then into a Scottish Cup quarter-final, winning his final two matches in charge.
Player anger
The reaction from fans tells just that, the feeling that McPake had been done dirty by club bosses stung.
And the players can be included in that, too.
After a poor run, they’d got themselves back on track, feeling good about themselves and, seemingly, heading in the right direction.
The feeling around the club was they had given themselves a chance of finding a route to safety.
Suddenly, though, the rug was pulled from under them.
And there was anger at the way their old manager had been treated by the club.
It was credit to the players that they put all that behind them and performed well at Celtic, unfortunate to come away with nothing.
But the shock of the manner of McPake’s exit manifested itself in the woeful showing against Livingston on Saturday.
Yes, this Dundee team have had very bad days before but there was no fight in this performance, nothing to suggest survival was on the cards this season.
This was easy for Livingston, it wasn’t close to competitive.
The display didn’t come from a lack of character or desire to win – the stuffing had been knocked out of them by the decision from above and the timing of it.
Full-on dread
It is McGhee and Rusk’s task now to pick up the pieces and do it quickly, a mammoth job.
Winning the favour of the fans is already an uphill task.
Before Saturday, there was an inescapable feeling of disquiet for what might be coming for Dundee.
That’s now ratcheted up to full-on dread.
This squad has shown the ability to bounce back from setbacks before, they must do that at home to Hibs on Wednesday.
Matches are running out, goodwill from the stands already has and the performance against Livingston screamed relegation.
The players and management need to find inspiration from someplace.
If they don’t, Dundee are going down.
And the root cause will have been entirely self-inflicted.
Mark McGhee admits Dundee ‘thoroughly deserved’ angry crowd reaction after 4-0 Livingston thrashing
