I’m worried about Dundee.
And I know plenty of others are too.
Queen’s Park maybe aren’t!
But their form over the past three months has been miles off what’s needed.
Saturday’s performance at Partick Thistle was a massive concern.
Had someone watched that with no knowledge of the league table or what was at stake, no way would they have thought that was a clash between two teams vying for promotion to the top flight.
The standard was very poor and the result was no good for either side with Queen’s Park winning.
Change
Something has to change pretty quickly if Dundee are going to be anywhere near promotion.
Keep going with this form and they’ll be fighting to stay in the play-off spots, never mind going for first place.
There was no creativity at Firhill and that’s where my main concern lies.
That can’t continue.
And it certainly can’t continue at Dens tomorrow night.
The fans just won’t accept that.
This is a major, major game for the Dark Blues.
The team and manager need to give the supporters something to cling to, some hope that they can still achieve the objective of promotion.
If they don’t, the supporters will let them know.
Fans
Go back as far as when I was playing and the attitude from the stands was the same – no matter who you are playing, no matter if it was League Two or the Premiership, the expectation is you play well and you fight.
Do that and you have a powerful weapon at your back because we’ve all seen what the Dundee fanbase can be like when they get behind their team.
Gary Bowyer and his players need to harness that, starting against Ayr United.
Because the passion from the stands can go one of two ways – huge support or on the backs of the players.
The fans will be massive for the team between now and the end of the season but only if they believe in what they are seeing.
That’s not the case at the moment after just one win in the last five league games.
Gary Bowyer
Bowyer himself is getting stick for team selection and substitutions.
I was surprised to see Paul McMullan get taken off at Firhill and it sounds like some of the away fans were too.
He can be inconsistent but he’s also got the ability to win a match in a split-second and can change games from nowhere.
But it’s the manager who makes these decisions, he maybe saw something he didn’t like or wanted to change the shape of his team.
These things either work or they don’t, there’s not often a middle ground so I’m not one to go heavy on that – managers will always be judged at the end of the season and if Dundee finish fourth, Bowyer will be judged pretty harshly.
There is still time, though it is running out.
All it takes is one moment to spark a team into life.
Dundee – and the home crowd – need that moment at Dens tomorrow.
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