Dundee’s Premiership crisis shows no sign of coming to an end, with defeat to Hamilton Accies making it seven losses in a row.
The result dropped the Dark Blues into the play-off position, two points adrift of Ross County, Hamilton and Motherwell.
The only consolation is that they are still five points above rock bottom Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
An Alex D’Acol first half penalty and a late Michael Devlin header won the match for Accies.
There was a promising early move from Dundee when Paul McGowan and Faissal El Bakhtaoui combined to set Marcus Haber away down the right. Unfortunately, the Canadian’s cross was too heavy to find one of his team-mates in the box.
Haber was again put through seconds later and this time he was able to get a shot away. He tried to find the bottom near post corner but Remi Matthews kept the well-struck effort out.
It was an even opening 15 minutes of this contest, though. Accies came close to scoring themselves when they worked an opening for Rakish Bingham just inside the box and his angled rive was tipped round the post by Scott Bain.
On 18 minutes the Dundee fans thought their team were ahead when Tom Hateley’s cross from the right looked to be perfectly weighted and directed for Haber to head home. The big striker, however, didn’t get anything on it.
A long-range Greg Docherty shot was punched by Bain straight to Dougie Imrie, whose lack of composure with the loose ball let the home keeper off the hook.
Midway through the half it was Accies who broke the deadlock. Hateley brought Imrie down in the box and D’Acol was clinical from the penalty spot to give Bain no chance.
It took Dundee a few minutes to get over the loss of the opening goal but on 30 minutes El Bakhtaoui narrowly missed the target with a low 20-yarder.
Craig Wighton’s dancing feet got him past a couple of men in the box but his stabbed shot didn’t have enough power to find the net.
El Bakhtaoui appealed for a penalty when he hit the deck after Georgios Sarris challenge on the byeline but referee John Beaton wasn’t interested. Before the break the former Dunfermline man also nearly scored with a header.
After the re-start there was another Dundee penalty shout. Beaton had a good view as Cammy Kerr went down when Massimo Donati hung a leg out and again chose not to point to the spot.
El Bakhtaoui had been lively all afternoon and he forced a fine save out of Matthews on 55 minutes, then he nearly got on the end of a low cross from the right a few minutes later.
There was a near thing at the other end when a Docherty cross deflected off Darren O’Dea’s boot and looped just past the far post, with Bain helpless.
The game was finished off on 84 minutes when Devlin headed a corner home at the back post.
There was no questioning the effort Dundee put in but they’ll need more of that and some extra quality to dig themselves out of the deep hole they are now in.