There have been plenty of contenders for the low point of Dundee United’s season.
Hamilton away, Hibs away and St Johnstone away are up/down there with the best/worst of them, as is Motherwell at home.
So too was a three-goal defeat at Partick Thistle that sent the Tannadice club to the bottom of the Premiership, a position from which they have yet to rise.
It was a performance which provoked a withering assessment by caretaker manager Dave Bowman that United were a “soft touch”.
There were plenty of other blunt comments from Bowman post-match, but that was the phrase that stuck. He wasn’t the first, or the last, to use it.
Nobody is calling United a soft touch anymore, though. Not when they can hold on with 10 men for over half-an-hour for victory against their bogey side to bring their survival hopes back into their own hands.
Midfielder Paul Paton, whose return to the team has been transformational for United, believes Thistle will be facing a toughened-up team compared to the one they rolled over in October.
“The line-up is probably a bit different,” Paton said. “I can’t quite remember who played back then. It was a tough time.
“Our manager leaving, we hadn’t appointed a new one. Tuesday is a chance to prove a point.
“We’ve been labelled a soft touch before. When I was out of the team I remember reading all that.
“Being labelled like that is not nice. That’s a team I was playing for. We have shown we are not a soft touch, we don’t mind battling.
“We’re probably not as pretty as we were in previous seasons. But when you’re the position we are in you just need the three points. It doesn’t matter how you get them.
“We were poor, but we have turned it round. We are battling for each other. You saw against St Johnstone with 10 men, we worked for each other. That’s unbelievable spirit, that’s a team spirit.”
Tonight’s encounter is United’s game in hand on Kilmarnock.
A win would cut the gap to the Rugby Park men to just two points and Hamilton would only be six points away.
Paton isn’t concerning himself with the psychological impact of the Tangerines looming large in the rear view mirror of their relegation rivals, however.
“I can’t comment on other teams,” he said. “Everybody else is above us. It wouldn’t be fair for me to comment on those teams. We can only focus on ourselves.
“I can’t afford to think about Kilmarnock as captain of this team. I know how we feel – we are determined to get off the bottom.
“We have always believed. My first game back we were 14 points behind. We could have gone 17 behind when we played Killie if they won. Ever since then we have dragged it back. That game was do or die.
“We have to keep the feet on the ground. Since I’ve been here we’ve never won at McDiarmid Park. Things like that have to change for us to stay in the league.
“We are still adrift and we need to keep working hard. We need to build on it. If we start getting too far ahead ourselves when you’re bottom of the league then you’ll never get off the bottom. You just have to have a siege mentality and keep fighting.”
Partick are in need of a win for their top six hopes so it’s not a case of United facing a mid-table side with nothing left to play for.
Former Jags player Paton noted: “Thistle are a good side. I played there under a good manager. Archie (Alan Archibald) has done fantastically well there, but we will go there with a positive outlook. They are a good team, it will be hard.
“We are not trying to be great on the eye, we are just trying to do what we need to do to get out of this position.”