Tony Docherty hailed a “complete performance” from his Dundee side as they ran out deserving winners at Motherwell.
Lyall Cameron’s first-half strike was enough to earn a big, big win for the Dark Blues – ending a run of four straight defeats.
The Dens boss revealed he set his side one challenge at Fir Park – earning a clean sheet.
His defence has come under huge scrutiny in recent weeks culminating in the 3-2 defeat at home to Kilmarnock a fortnight ago.
“The players deserve a huge amount of credit,” Docherty said.
“We did a hell of a lot of work on the training ground, in the analysis room, all about keeping a clean sheet.
“It was a complete performance away from home.
“I thought in the first half we were very good technically, we scored a great goal, had chances to score other goals.
“But then you’ve seen the other side, digging in and making sure we’ve seen out that clean sheet to get the three points.
“It’s reward for all the hard work they put in during that international break.”
Ringing the changes
Tony Docherty rang the changes from the collapse against Kilmarnock with four new names on his team sheet – four players making their first league starts of the season.
The big one was Trevor Carson in goal, taking Jon McCracken’s place, while Scott Fraser was in for the suspended Mo Sylla.
Fin Robertson and Ryan Astley also came in for Scott Tiffoney and Antonio Portales.
Former Dee Zach Robinson almost had a golden chance in the opening minutes, only for Clark Robertson to wrap a long leg round him to poke away the ball.
The home side started with the confidence winning four of the last five matches brings.
But, as the half wore on, Dundee steadily took control.
And racked up the efforts on goal. Closest was Billy Koumetio, heading a Fraser free-kick just wide on 32 minutes.
Finally the goal came on 38 minutes as Lyall Cameron notched his first league goal of the campaign.
Ziyad Larkeche, again impressive down the left flank, sent in a cross for Simon Murray. His diving header was blocked and fell to the feet of the Cameron who finished with composure.
And delighted his manager who namechecked the youngster in his post-match comments: “A special mention for Lyall.
“After his travelling this week he put in a fantastic performance.”
‘Learned our lesson’
Cameron’s goal gave Dundee a big lift and they didn’t look back.
There could have been more before the break with home fans meeting the half-time whistle with boos.
The Dark Blues started the second half as they finished the first with Curtis Main stinging the palms of Aston Oxborough and Murray putting another effort wide.
The Steelmen threw on changes to try to work their way into the game. However, Carson was largely untroubled – a good stop from a long-range Lennon Miller shot the only save of note the incoming keeper made in the second period.
And despite pressure from the home side, Dundee stood up and saw out the contest well.
Lessons learned from Kilmarnock says Docherty.
“That’s a big win,” he added.
“We had losses that we had to respond to.
“We have learned our lesson from the previous game.
“When tested and when asked questions we stood up.
“We dug in, I think we showed every side of our performance to get a result at a difficult venue.
“It makes me very proud as manager.”
Scott Fraser
It was a day full of positives, one negative was seeing Scott Fraser limp off on 77 minutes.
It was the midfielder’s first start since signing for Dundee, replacing the suspended Mo Sylla at the base of the midfield.
Asked about Fraser, Docherty said: “He’s fine.
“He actually got a fitness test before the game, he was feeling his groins a little bit.
“We saw today his experience and his know-how is so important to us.
“He’ll be fine, he just needs to rest it down a little bit because he’s not played a lot of football recently.
“The intensity of the game caught up with him a wee bit.”
Teams
Motherwell (3-5-2): Oxborough, O’Donnell (Kaleta 77), Gordon, Balmer, Zdravkovski, Robinson (Ebiye 46), Halliday (Maswanhise 61), Stamatelopoulos (Watt 46), Casey (Tavares 61), Wilson, Miller.
Subs not used: Hegyi, Seddon, Blaney, Koutroumbis.
Dundee (3-5-2): Carson, Astley, C Robertson, Koumetio, Ingram, Larkeche, Fraser (Portales 77), F Robertson, Cameron (Tiffoney 71), Murray (Palmer-Houlden 81), Main.
Subs not used: McCracken, Sharp, Mulligan, Adewumi, Braybrooke, Vetro.
Referee: Euan Anderson
VAR: Andrew Dallas
Attendance: 5,084 (822)
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