As Kenneth Vargas went eye-to-eye with Trevor Carson and put Hearts six goals up at Dens Park, the end of Tony Docherty’s time in charge at Dundee had begun.
The entire season hinged on two fateful February defeats, one 6-0 thrashing followed by another in the space of five brutal days.
An impressive January seemed to have put Dundee’s faltering first half of the season to bed and better times would be ahead.
But no, the recovery process for this young Dark Blues team was a lengthy one. Almost too long as safety from relegation was only assured on the final day of the campaign.
Dundee’s 2024/25 season promised much but ultimately delivered more pain than pleasure to the club’s enduring supporters.
Courier Sport witnessed it all – this is the story of Dundee’s remarkable 2024/25.
Early promise – but warning signs of things to come
Dundee came into 2024/25 on a wave of positivity.
The previous season finished with a place in the top six, pre-season brought a win over Europa Conference League-bound Banik Ostrava and a draw at Lech Poznan.
The Dark Blues blitzed through their Premier Sports Cup group stage, setting a record by rattling in 18 goals in four matches.
Docherty had been stung by going out at the same stage 12 months previously by just one solitary goal. There was no letting that happen again in his second season.
It was a hugely promising start but there were portents of what was to come down the line.
Despite massively over-powering lower league sides, they were leaky at the back.
Annan Athletic, who would be relegated to League Two at the end of the season, caused all sorts of problems for the Premiership Dee at their makeshift Brechin home.
Annan scored one and should have had more. A familiar story that would repeat itself again and again throughout the season.
Luke McCowan
Dundee had a diamond in their midfield, a leader in the dressing-room and man who made things happen on the pitch.
Luke McCowan left on deadline day, by that time he’d made eight appearances and played a part in 16 goals. Yes, sixteen.
Only Simon Murray, Lyall Cameron and Scott Tiffoney ended the entire season with more.
McCowan’s departure was seismic. But it was expected.
Celtic were interested. They would be making a bid, Dundee would accept it and McCowan would move to his boyhood club.
But the summer wore on, the deadline moving closer. Both McCowan and manager Docherty continually having to bat away questions over the midfielder’s future.
Then came a bid from Hibs. Rejected. And another. Rejected. Hibs weren’t going away.
But McCowan wasn’t interested. He knew the Celtic move was going to come.
Eventually it did, late, late on deadline day. A great move for McCowan.
Good money for Dundee too, £1 million-plus banked, but terrible timing.
There was no time to use that money to replace him. There was a replacement lined up by Docherty in the shape of Scott Fraser, who was determined to get back up the road for family reasons.
Dundee couldn’t, though, shell out a transfer fee for Fraser with McCowan not yet sold.
Instead Fraser had to negotiate the end of his contract at Charlton Athletic.
Now a free agent, suddenly there were some interesting offers coming Fraser’s way with the opportunity of playing abroad attractive.
Eventually, though, he would arrive at Dundee on a one-year deal three weeks after leaving Charlton.
Behind in terms of fitness there was a lot of catching up to do. Unfortunately injury struck in his first start for the club.
It could end up being his only start for the club after the injury ruled him out for six months. Fraser would only make two more substitute appearances before the season came to a close.
Star man McCowan was gone, his replacement unable to play. Dundee’s midfield would be a problem all season.
Injuries and squad issues
Fraser was a major loss but not the biggest absence.
Joe Shaughnessy had been a colossus in his first season at the club, leading the team to a top-six finish.
Again, Shaughnessy being out for over half the season was expected. The big defender wasn’t going to be rushing back either at this stage of his career.
Clark Robertson was brought in to mitigate the lack of experience in defence but he, too, suffered injury problems.
Indeed, his second absence came amid a full-blown injury crisis.
When both Jordan McGhee and Billy Koumetio got injured at the same time at St Mirren, Dundee suddenly had FIVE centre-backs injured.
But the makeshift back three of Ryan Astley, emergency cover signing Sean Kelly and young full-back Ethan Ingram stepped up to the plate in Paisley with Dundee winning 2-1.
The squad was creaking with injuries throughout the campaign but there were some self-inflicted issues, too.
Ziyad Larkeche made a fine start to life at the club after joining on loan from QPR but a bad hamstring injury left the squad without suitable cover at left wing-back for a large chunk of the campaign.
Defensive midfielder Mo Sylla didn’t have any cover for the first half of the season while injury to Seb Palmer-Houlden left Simon Murray as the only fit striker.
What if Murray got injured? It didn’t bear thinking about.
Luckily for Dundee, Murray – in his own words – is “made of steel” and he continued tirelessly putting the ball in the back of the net.
The defensive injuries saw Luke Graham recalled from Falkirk but then barely used while Aaron Donnelly’s arrival in January left the squad overloaded with centre-backs when injuries abated.
Signings
Overall, Dundee’s recruitment proved more miss than hit.
Lots of potential signed but only just enough for the here and now to stay in the Premiership.
Simon Murray was a major hit. A three-year deal and six-figure fee for a 32-year-old felt like a gamble but it was a gamble that paid off handsomely.
Twenty-two goals in all competitions, 16 in the Premiership, the top-scoring Scotsman in the division, two Player of the Year nominations and catching the eye of the national team boss.
Not a bad return from investment.
Among the other captures, Larkeche was a success, Seun Adewumi had flashes of brilliance and Palmer-Houlden did well.
The rest had good moments, some very good, but also bad, again some very bad.
Jon McCracken had a couple of howlers but also earned himself a Scotland call-up. He was then immediately dropped and wasn’t able to dislodge the more experienced Trevor Carson.
With a repeat call-up very much a possibility, McCracken was frustrated at a lack of action. That’s a situation to keep an eye on this summer.
Clark Robertson for the most part defended well but threw in some howlers of his own while Koumetio, Ingram, Imari Samuels and Donnelly are all projects for the future.
This is from where Docherty’s ultimate demise stemmed. The investment in Murray bore fruit, a similar-sized investment in Donnelly hasn’t yet and an even bigger one – believed to be around £300,000 – for Koumetio was hit with a significant injury.
Dundee spent some very decent money – much more than they have in previous seasons – but had put together an unbalanced squad that could only scrape survival.
Hearts humiliation
Dundee’s first half of the season had its ups and downs. Highs with back-to-back 4-1 home wins over Hibs and Motherwell, lows with giving up a two-goal lead with four minutes remaining to lose against Kilmarnock.
But they went into the February 1 encounter with Hearts in rude health. Things were looking up.
They were coming out of their injury crisis, they felt hard done by to only get a draw from both Rangers and Celtic after leading in both games and earned a rare clean sheet to defeat Dundee United in the cup.
Unbeaten in four, the Dee were sitting in seventh place and two points outside the top six.
Hearts were three points behind, way back in 11th. Dundee were confident, this is where the push for a second-straight top-six finish would start.
The young players were bedded in now, time to put the inconsistency behind them and push upwards.
Instead one dreadful collapse set off a crisis of confidence. One Tony Docherty’s managerial tenure at the club would not overcome.
It was a bad day but this Dundee side had had bad days and recovered. A trip to Celtic wasn’t a good next fixture though.
Particularly a Celtic side who’d had their nose bloodied at Dens just a few weeks before. The Dark Blues had made Celtic angry and when Celtic are angry the opposition are in trouble.
Back-to-back 6-0 defeats destroyed the confidence of this team. They’d pick up just one point from 18 available and slid into a relegation battle.
Battle to beat the drop
A memorable victory at Dundee United lifted the spirits finally, an exhilarating first half showing the attacking potential of this side.
When they were on it, this team were brilliant to watch. But too often the brilliance waned, the starting players unable to maintain the intensity and the depth of the squad not there to see games out.
Too often leads disappeared – 28 points lost from winning positions is a damning stat with goals conceded in the final 15 minutes this side’s Achilles heel.
The United win was followed by conceding four goals to Rangers, letting a 3-1 lead slip at Dens with more late goals. Then another good win over St Mirren followed by conceding another four goals at Hibs.
Consistently inconsistent.
The one consistency, however, was Dundee’s league position – they’d been 11th for over two months going into the split.
Giving hope was Ross County’s dreadful form. This, though, was a Ross County side that had taken nine points off the Dark Blues already.
A much-needed win at Hearts put dark blue noses in front but another lead given up against Motherwell then a poor show at Kilmarnock left things hanging going into the final two games.
It looked like they’d finally done enough to secure Premiership status for next season, leading against Ross County (finally) until referee Nick Walsh pointed to the spot deep into injury time.
It was the harshest of penalty decisions. The kind of decision referees have been instructed not to give this season.
County scored and took it to the final day.
News emerged in the press room that Docherty would not be coming to do post-match interviews, instead the club had decided assistant manager Stuart Taylor would take over.
Too often Docherty had been critical of refereeing decisions and in particular VAR. He’d been asked at points in the season by those at the club to tone it down.
This was exactly why. This decision needed blasting but he’d used up all his blasts already.
Taylor did a fine politician’s job in front of the cameras and, in the end, the anger fuelled Dundee to the win they needed at St Johnstone.
Lyall Cameron coming to the fore with his final act before heading to Rangers, signing off in signature fashion.
That wasn’t the end of the drama, though.
Tony Docherty sacked
Before Docherty had even got on the team bus he was told he and his staff were required at the training ground at 9am the following day.
That 9am meeting was a quick one, Docherty’s time as manager was at an end.
It was harsh. In the past few decades of Dundee history, avoiding relegation was to be celebrated.
Managing director John Nelms, though, was not celebrating. After significant investment in the team they’d come within two bad results of the financial black hole that is Championship football.
In the new world of Dundee Football Club that wasn’t acceptable.
The axe fell. The early promise of Docherty’s reign dispatched within a few short minutes at Gardyne Campus.
And so the new Dundee manager hunt begins once more.
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