Dundee striker Cillian Sheridan: ‘We are not doing ourselves justice’

Dundee aren’t doing themselves justice right now after Cove Rangers condemned them to a fourth defeat of the campaign.

That’s the view of striker Cillian Sheridan after the Dark Blues gave up a 1-0 lead to lose 3-1 in their first-ever league match at the Balmoral Stadium.

Dundee’s Championship record this term reads nine played, four wins, one draw and four defeats.

And it has left them four points behind leaders Partick Thistle having played a game more.

Grind

But there’s no looking at the league table right now for Sheridan and his team-mates – there are issues to sort out at Dens Park and quickly.

“If you are going to be successful and win titles, you need to be strong as a unit defensively. That’s everyone, me included when I’m on the pitch,” the former Celtic frontman said.

“That defensive structure should be there so when you’re not playing well in games, you don’t concede.

“We were on top of them in the first 20 minutes but they only concede one. When they get on top of us, we concede three.

“It’s consistency – you can’t win two or three nil one week, then lose the next if you want to get promoted.

“It’s not what we expect of ourselves. We have standards and nights like Tuesday we are not doing ourselves justice.

“We see when we are good, everything is going well, we are at those standards and can see how good we can be.

“But, the other side of it, when we are not playing well, we really don’t play well. We need to grind through those times.

“That’s what successful teams I’ve been a part of do.”

Expectation

Sheridan has been around the world plying his trade, including a season taking on Barcelona, PSG and Ajax in the Champions League group stages.

This is a different level with Tuesday’s defeat his first taste of the Scottish second tier.

His second may come at Arbroath on Saturday against the Championship’s bottom side.

In the meantime for Dundee it is about getting back to the kind of form that has seen them keep a clean sheet in over 50% of their matches this season.

“We knew it was a hard week, three very tough away games,” Sheridan added.

“We started as we expect to play. It might not last 90 minutes but we expect to do that enough to win a game comfortably.

“If you said after 30 minutes that we’d lose 3-1, you’d be thinking ‘where’s that going to come from?’.

“It’s about sticking together and trying to build confidence when teams are on top of us.

“I think we have enough lads who have had enough success in this league who can turn it around.”