Steven Milne has been over the course and distance of the Division One title race before. During his time with St Johnstone he was both the hunter and the hunted, so is relaxed about Dundee’s chances of winning the championship.
In 2007, Milne sat down to Christmas dinner 10 points adrift of big-spending Gretna before a spring surge allowed his team to catch them by the final day of the season, albeit they were pipped to the trophy in the last seconds.
And he has also experienced the pressures of being out in front for a long time.
Milne, instrumental in Dundee’s 3-0 win over Livingston on Saturday, believes that the current policy of simply focusing on each game in isolation is the right one as they try to overhaul Ross County.
Goals from Ryan Conroy, Neil McGregor and substitute Nicky Riley gave Dundee a deserved victory and moved them to within four points of the long-time leaders, who still have two games in hand.
Dundee have found their form at the right time of the season and there is a quiet confidence building around Dens Park, although title talk remains off limits.
“It was a professional performance,” Milne said. “Games like this have tripped us up in the past so it was good to see it through with a 3-0 scoreline.
“We are not really looking at anyone else, it’s all about concentrating on our own game and seeing what we do. We can’t influence the other teams the only thing we can do is concentrate on winning our own matches.
“We were bottom of the league not that long ago but we’ve been able to pick up form and get some consistency. But the most difficult bit is maintaining it. Ross County have been on a great run and are top on merit.
“The First Division is a hard league. Anyone can beat anyone on their day and I would expect points to be dropped by everyone.
“The mentality we had at St Johnstone when we had a big deficit to Gretna was to just focus on our own games and shut out everything else. That’s what we’re trying to do here. It is an old cliche but if you do genuinely look at one game at a time then you have a much better chance.
“Back then we needed Gretna to slip up a few times and it happened for us, although we didn’t win the league in the end but we managed to catch them and give ourselves a chance. We have to show the same mentality. We have a lot of big characters in the dressing-room here.”
Dundee had to defend early in the contest, with Rab Douglas twice denying Liam Fox but once Conroy slammed home a good pass by Gavin Rae the Dark Blues were in command. McGregor then somewhat fortuitously knocked in a Conroy free-kick before Riley came off the bench to head home the third.
Livi, who had Mark Fotheringam ordered off for two bookings the second of which was a late challenge on former team-mate Gavin Rae had a chance to get back into the contest at 1-0 but saw Kenny Deuchar miss from a good position.
The striker said: “My miss was the turning point. We were doing OK and if I’d scored it would have changed the game because we would have gone to 1-1. Dundee went up the park and scored pretty quickly it killed us really.”
Dundee now head to face Kilmarnock in the cup on Tuesday and Milne is confident they can upset the SPL side.
He said: “We did well against Killie in the first game and we are looking to do the same again. They are a very good side and it’s going to be difficult going away from home against them. But we are confident in our own ability and believe we can get through to the next round.”
Dundee boss Barry Smith was pleased with the way his players tackled Livingston.
“It was a real professional performance so I am delighted,” he said. “We are just taking one game at a time.”