Julen Etxabeguren admits the Dundee players owe the club’s fans a big performance at Aberdeen on Friday night after the desperately-disappointing display in defeat against St Mirren at the weekend.
The Dark Blues crashed out of the William Hill Scottish Cup at the first hurdle as the Championship strugglers from Paisley pulled off one of the shocks of the round.
Etxabeguren is now looking to make amends as league business resumes against the Dons at Pittodrie.
The centre-half said: “We have to step up. When we go to Aberdeen, we have to show what we are able to do.
“It’s a good opportunity for us to try and bounce back.
“I think we owe it to the fans. We can’t perform like that again. We have let them down as well as ourselves.
“Now we have to try and make up for this disappointment when we get back into league business.”
Etxabeguren admitted there were no excuses for the poor performance against St Mirren.
He added: “It was a bad day. We all know that. Everyone is gutted by the result.
“You have to show more when you go on the pitch in a cup tie like that but we didn’t and that’s why that happened. There are no excuses and we must move on.
“St Mirren showed pride and deserved to win the tie.
“We weren’t good enough and they had much more desire on the day.
“That shouldn’t be the case but that’s the way it was.
“That is very disappointing but we have a chance to do better in our next game which has got to be the aim for us now.”
