Poor day for Dundee FC but there is silver lining on Hearts cloud

Dundee had an afternoon to forget in Edinburgh after coming away distinctly second best at Hearts.

Lawrence Shankland proved the difference between the sides, his first-half brace enough to earn the points for the home team.

This was an off-colour showing from the Dark Blues.

Their usual attacking verve was missing but that nasty habit of conceding two goals in games continued.

There is, though, one silver lining on this cloud that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Courier Sport was at the 2-0 Tynecastle defeat to pick out some key talking points.

First half

Shankland scores — Lawrence Shankland makes it 1-0 against Dundee. Image: Mark Scates/SNS

Dundee’s form going into the game was very good, third in the form table behind Celtic and Rangers.

Hearts were at the other end of that particular table and rock bottom of the division going into this contest.

But neither of those factors were on show in a first half completely dominated by the Jambos.

Dundee didn’t get near them. They tried to press high and quickly the press failed.

Dundee were too easy to play through and the midfield two of Mo Sylla and Jordan McGhee were left with far too much to do to stem the Hearts attacks.

Shankland and Blair Spittal were clever in their movement dropping behind Dundee’s midfield where the back three didn’t want to follow.

Frustrated Tony Docherty on the sidelines. Image: Mark Scates/SNS

The new 3-4-3 setup wasn’t perfect in midweek, despite the scoreline, and it didn’t work at Tynecastle.

Hearts played with a back four and were continually finding spaces across the pitch, particularly out wide and behind the Dee midfield.

Crucially Neil Critchley said post-match that Hearts had an idea how their opponents would set up. It appears they figured out exactly how to hurt them.

In the first 45, the home side had 11 shots to Dundee’s two (one was blocked, the other hit row Z) with five on target to zero.

Hearts had 62% possession and made 100 more passes than their opponents with an accuracy of 80% compared to Dundee’s 68%.

They also won 57% of duels and 63% of aerial duels.

Distinctly second best.

Exertions

Tony Docherty pointed to the midweek win over Motherwell as a reason for his team’s under performance.

And he has a point.

Ryan Astley and Lawrence Shankland — Ryan Astley and the rest of the three-man defence played three games in a week. Image: Malcolm Mackenzie/Shutterstock

While Dundee were beating the Steelmen so well, Hearts had a whole week to prepare for the game.

Of the XI at Tynecastle, nine had started against Motherwell of which eight had also started last weekend against Kilmarnock.

So eight players had started three matches in eight days. Five of those played three lots of 90 minutes in that time while Billy Koumetio – who did have a decent game on Saturday – missed only five minutes.

Such was his concern at the workload on his players, Docherty rested skipper Simon Murray and Scott Tiffoney from the starting XI.

Simon Murray is told off by referee Colin Steven — Simon Murray came on at half-time for Dundee. Image: Pete Summers/Shutterstock

Murray had started every league game this season, subbed off only four times in 15 games.

Tiffoney, meanwhile, hasn’t played much in recent matches. But it seems finding a role for him in Dundee’s formation continues to prove tricky.

Hearts played Aberdeen last Sunday but only had seven of the same faces starting this one too.

They made the fresh legs count.

McCracken

Dundee’s goalie was very good at Kilmarnock last weekend then even better against Motherwell in midweek.

He wasn’t able to continue that form in the third game of the week, however.

An early kick that ended up blocked was an early warning sign and he could have done better with each goal.

Jon McCracken in action against Motherwell. Image: David Young/Shutterstock — Jon McCracken was impressive against Motherwell. Image: David Young/Shutterstock

With the first he could probably have pushed the initial shot out for a corner while the second saw a low cross pushed into the middle of the box where Shankland was lurking.

And second half the offside flag saved his blushes from a big blooper.

But this is the inconsistency that comes with young players. And that applies across the whole team.

McCracken is 24 and this was only his 59th game as a senior player.

Josh Mulligan — Dundee remain in decent shape this season despite this defeat. Image: Mark Scates/SNS

Ups and downs will come. The problem is as a goalkeeper the downs are bigger than any other position on the pitch. A mistake generally means a goal conceded.

It must be said, though, that this game wasn’t lost because the goalkeeper could have played better.

The 10 in front of him were nowhere near the standards they’ve set over the past couple of seasons.

However, despite the disappointment of the result the Premiership table still sees Dundee sitting in the top six after 16 games.

So it’s not all bad.