Dundee have to learn quickly if they are to live up to their pre-season billing as Championship favourites.
Friday night’s disappointing defeat to Ayr United followed a stalemate at Greenock Morton and leaves the Dark Blues trailing the Honest Men by four points already.
The Championship season is only five games old so there is plenty of time to play catch-up.
However, central defender Lee Ashcroft has warned his team-mates they’ll have to up their game and quickly.
“It’s not good enough, to be honest,” he said of the 3-1 loss at Somerset Park.
“Sitting watching from the bench, I thought we started the game great. We got the early goal but we never built on it.
“From then on they dominated the game.
“It’s time to roll the sleeves up now. There are boys who have been up here for a couple of games now, there are boys who have been here before. We need to learn, going to places like Somerset Park is not easy.
“You need to win the fight, first and foremost. If you don’t win the fight, you’ve no chance.
“Games like this and Morton last week, these teams show you no respect.
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“We need to learn quick.
“The majority of away games are going to be like that in this league.
“But we’ve been here before, it is down to us. The games are coming thick and fast so we need to get back to it straight away.”
‘That’s not us’
Ashcroft himself was Dundee’s Player of the Year in 2020/21 as they won promotion to the Premiership through the play-offs.
The big part of the squad that celebrated that success with the big defender are still at Dens Park.
That’s an advantage for the Dark Blues says Ashcroft but far more is needed on the pitch.
“There are boys who have been here before and we need to use that to our advantage and help the boys around us,” he added.
“We’ve done it before, we did it the rough way the last time. If that’s what it takes again then we’ll have to do it.
“But we need to be better than that on Friday night.
“That’s not us. That’s not the team we see in training every day.
“No sugar-coating – Ayr deserved to win the game and we were poor.”
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