Dundee can still achieve promotion to the SPL after drawing with Greenock Morton on Saturday. However, even the most fanatical Dark Blues supporter does not need Carol Vorderman to tell them that the numbers do not add up.
Inverness Caley Thistle’s win over Dunfermline at the weekend took them nine points clear of Dundee.
Even if Caley were to lose against Ayr next week, Dundee would still have to beat Raith twice and Terry Butcher’s men on the last day of the season in the Highlands to have any hope of going up.
However, ICT have a goal difference lead of 18 over the long-time promotion favourites.
The Inverness champagne will have to remain on ice for a little bit longer but it seems certain for Dundee that a season which began with such bright promise and hope for everyone connected with the club will end in desperate disappointment.
The summer of 2009 saw the addition of wealthy benefactor Calum Melville to the Dens Park board and his cheque book enabled the club to make a host of big-name signings, most notably Leigh Griffiths and Gary Harkins.
Those acquisitions helped Dundee make a formidable start to the league campaign and at one stage, they held an 11-point lead at the top of the table.
However, 2010 has been an “annus horribilis” for the Dark Blues with the side only winning three out of 13 league games so far this year.
The slump began with defeat at home to bottom side Airdrie on January 3, and it was a 3-0 loss against the same opponents on March 20 which ultimately cost manager Jocky Scott his job.
Gordon Chisholm and his assistant Billy Dodds were drafted in to halt the slide but it seems the change at the top has been in vain.
Once again on Saturday for large swathes of the game, when the going got tough, the tough were only to be found in the opposition ranks.
Despite knowing nothing less than a win would do, Dundee were woeful in the first 45 minutes and deserved to go in 1-0 down.
When they conceded another early in the second half, it looked all over as a contest. However, Chisholm’s men did fight back but it was too little too late.
Dundee centre-half Jim Lauchlan admitted the result had all but put paid to their promotion dream.
“We are really disappointed,” he said. “We lost a cheap goal in the first half and were totally dominated by Morton. We have to look to bounce back and take maximum points between now and the end of the season, not just for ourselves but for the punters.
“We will need to win five or six nil in all our games which we have never done at any stage of the season.”
That avalanche of goals is undoubtedly beyond this Dundee side on the evidence of Saturday’s match.
Chisholm had warned his players that Morton were a big team with a major height advantage, yet too often in the first half, the ball was lumped forward towards Griffiths and Colin McMenamin, while it was Morton who kept it on the deck and played some neat passing football.
They received their just rewards in the 40th minute when an Erik Paartalu header bounced back off the Dundee crossbar and fell invitingly into the path of David Witteveen, who lashed the ball home from close range.
Chisholm made changes at half time, bringing on Pat Clarke and Sean Higgins for McMenamin and Andrew Shinnie but it was the home side who almost increased their lead within a minute of the restart when Peter Weatherson found himself clean through on goal but he hooked his shot wide.
Morton scored a second in the 63rd minute when an Eric Paton error in midfield gifted possession to Morton and Lauchlan fouled Witteveen in the Dundee penalty area.
Carlo Monti stepped up to despatch the spot kick past Tony Bullock.
Just three minutes later, Dundee pulled one back when Harkins drilled a diagonal shot from 15 yards into the far corner of Colin Stewart’s net.
The Dark Blues equalised five minutes before the end of normal time when Griffiths hobbled back onto the pitch after lengthy treatment on his right ankle to take a curl a stunning left-foot free-kick over the Morton wall and high into Stewart’s net from the edge of the penalty area.
A frenetic end to the game saw Dundee create a couple of other chances with the best coming from a Harkins’ header which Stewart acrobatically tipped over with his fingertips.
A disappointed Chisholm did not hold back and warned his misfiring players that their places at Dens are on the line between now and the end of the season.
“We were supposed to be putting pressure on Inverness but I thought we were absolutely shocking in the first half,” he said.
“It is time people stood up to be counted or they will not be here next season.
His counterpart, former Dark Blues striker James Grady, said, “I am gutted for the boys. There were some straightforward decisions the referee did not get right. I thought we were fully deserving of the three points.”