Dundee’s disappointing defeat to St Johnstone on Saturday was “a massive kick in the teeth” as they remain rooted to the foot of the Premiership.
What the Dens players are refusing to do is allow “doom and gloom” to overcome them as they embark on a busy couple of weeks on the training field.
So says defender Ryan Sweeney as he targets a much-improved display – personally and as a team – against Aberdeen in 11 days’ time.
“There are still a lot of games and a lot of points to play for,” the former Stoke City man said.
“It’s not all doom and gloom here.
“On Saturday the performance wasn’t anywhere near what it has been in recent weeks. It was a massive kick in the teeth for us.
“When things haven’t been going your way, you want a game as soon as possible to try and rectify it.
“On the flipside, the international break gives us a couple of weeks to work on things on the training pitch so we can get that right for a couple weeks’ time.
“We have stuff to work on and we will come back firing after the international break.”
‘Personally, I have to do better’
Sweeney scored his first goal for the Dark Blues as he ended their five-match goal-less streak with a second-half header.
That, though, was small consolation with the score already 3-0 in St Johnstone’s favour.
And Sweeney is honest enough to admit his mistake in allowing Stevie May to score the third seconds after the restart.
“The result is the main thing,” he added.
“We weren’t good enough on Saturday, we gave away cheap goals.
“We had been defending pretty well up to now. I don’t feel like we gave ourselves a proper chance of getting a result.
“Myself, personally, I have to do better for the third goal just after half-time. Effectively, at 3-0 the game is pretty much done. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb.
“It was a cross into the box and I thought the lad was taking a shot so I went to ground anticipating that. He’s taken a touch round me instead and slotted it in the corner.
“Personally that was really disappointing.”
Sweeney added: “The goal ended the sticky patch we’ve had and it was weird because we’ve created a lot more in other games than we did on Saturday.
“This time we ended up scoring. It’s a bit of a monkey off the back in terms of that but it’s obvious the result is more important.
“We have a big two weeks coming up now before we play Aberdeen.”