Dundee striker Kane Hemmings is determined to get it right tonight after admitting he has under-performed since returning to the club.
Hemmings has scored only once for the Dark Blues – in the derby defeat to Dundee United – since rejoining them from Notts County in early August and was on the bench for Saturday’s 1-0 loss away to Morton.
It has been something of an inauspicious start to his second spell at Dens and the Englishman has agreed that it could have been much better.
He has been building up his match fitness and is determined to get among the goals when Dundee head down to Dumfries this evening to play Queen of the South at Palmerston.
He said: “I don’t think I have really performed as well as I can.
“I am not afraid of saying that.
“Listen, it is what it is.
“I remember in my first spell here I was in and out of the team when I first came to the club.
“You need to bide your time with these things.
“If given the chance in this game, I have felt good in training and am ready to play.”
Hemmings also conceded that the Dark Blues need to lift the mood after a four-week spell that has seen them lose 6-2 to United, be knocked out of the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer Cup at home by Elgin City, grab a narrow league win against part-timers Alloa and then go down to defeat at Cappielow.
The striker added: “It is a whole new team and people are getting used to each other.
“I was having a conversation the other day about how long teams have been in this league for. Teams have come down from the Premiership and floated about in the Championship for a while.
“What you need is for it to click for you and you will get it right.
“We want to be up there challenging this year and hopefully get promoted.
“That takes time, though, and it takes patience.
“It has been a disappointing couple of weeks, really.
“The good thing is we have another chance to put it right against Queen of the South. It is always nice when you get a fast turnaround following a defeat.
“We will go down there, take the game to them and have every reason to be confident that we can come away with a good result.
“If we can win then we can sit back over the weekend and see how the other results go.”
Hemmings felt there were positives to take away from Greenock but knows they can’t continue to give away goals like the one they lost from yet another setpiece.
He said: “I think if you watched the game you could tell we were the better team.
“You need to take your chances, though. We didn’t do that.
“You can’t switch off and give other teams cheap freekicks then not be aggressive in the box. We knew Morton were going to put it in there as that’s what they are good at.
“It is about not giving away cheap freekicks and then being aggressive if the ball comes into the box. You must make sure that you go up against your own opposition player.
“However, sometimes you can work on these things as much as you want but one switch-off can cost you everything.
“It is not about pointing fingers but sometimes you can say and do what you want in training but two minutes into a game everything can go out of the window. That’s what happens.
“It is something we are working on.
“Their game plan worked and ours didn’t so we need to dust ourselves off and get going again against Queen of the South.
“Listen, in football you are judged on results.
“Inside the camp we know our performance level hasn’t been that bad and we have been playing some good football.
“We just need to be a bit more clinical and get the ball forward that little bit faster.
“We need to up the tempo at times and really start to put together a run of performances that will see us win games.”
While Hemmings admits that he has taken time to get up to speed, new signing Graham Dorrans might also need a few weeks to get match-sharp.
However, as the frontman pointed out: “It is easy to say that people need time but in football you don’t get time.
“It is all right to say give it time but if you get beat on Friday then you’ve not got any time.
“So that’s why we work hard and train hard during the week to make sure we are doing everything right going into games.”
