Luke McCowan insists Dundee must own their poor display in defeat at Hibs

Dundee must take ownership of their performance in their disappointing defeat away to Hibs.

That’s the view of Luke McCowan after the Dark Blues’ lead in the top six race was cut to two points at Easter Road.

The Hibees ran out 2-1 winners after dominating for much of the contest.

“We were lucky to go in at half-time just 1-0 down because we didn’t use the ball well enough,” McCowan said.

“You can play bad, get back into the game and then be frustrated we lost a goal.

“But I don’t think we played anywhere near our usual selves and have to be smarter when we attack.

“We could have controlled the game far better but we didn’t do it.

“We knew before the game what type of team Hibs were but we didn’t deal with it and were punished.”

Trevor Carson

Trevor Carson gave away the penalty that broke the first-half deadlock.

However, he went on to make a string of saves and McCowan insists there won’t be any blame for the goalie coming from the dressing-room.

“If it wasn’t for Trev in the first half it could easily have been three or four,” he added.

“Trev probably won’t care about the saves he made because that’s the standard he sets himself.

“He knows himself the penalty he gave away was unlike him but he’s been unreal for us this season.

“He was pulling off some superb saves left, right and centre so the mistake he made was just a blip.

“That won’t stop him playing well for the rest of the season, it will only motivate him.

“From a team point of view, you can’t be relying on the keeper to pull you through a game with four or five top-class saves.

“We have to take a bit of ownership ourselves and when we make mistakes on the ball we get it back.

“We have to be better at the whole tactical side of things.

“Trev is a top goalie who will always pull us out of games, but we need to step up and help him because a lot happens before it gets near him.”

‘Get going again’

McCowan is pleased to have a midweek game this week to bounce back in.

However, a daunting trip to Premiership champions Celtic on Wednesday isn’t the ideal.

“It’s a tough one to bounce yourself back in, but you have to dust yourself off and get going again,” he added.

“I’ve always liked midweek games because they give you the chance to go again no matter what the result has been the previous weekend.

“So we’ll go there, we know the strengths we’ve got and we’ll try to exploit Celtic in any way we can.

“It’s going to be an even harder game than we had against Hibs so we’ll have to give it our all.”