Dundee are suffering.
Suffering from lack of confidence thanks to a habit of simply conceding far too many goals.
Just a few days ago they had conceded 41 goals in 23 league games. A number that is already too high.
Now they’ve gone and let in 12 in just two games.
Saturday was a horror show against Hearts, Celtic on Wednesday was more predictable but no less painful.
Dundee are approaching the most crucial point of the campaign – do they sink or do they swim?
Courier Sport was at Celtic Park to pick out key talking points.
The record books
It’s been a long time since a top-flight side conceded six goals in consecutive games.
Twenty-five years to be exact.
Unfortunately for the Dark Blues, the last team to suffer that ignominy was also Dundee.
Back in 2000, Jocky Scott’s side were thumped 7-1 at home by Rangers followed by a 6-2 humbling at Celtic.
They would get over that disastrous week with a draw against Kilmarnock, followed by a win over Hibs so there’s an example if needed of bouncing back from this.
The big issue Tony Docherty and his side have now, though, is their inability to keep the back door shut.
They’ve now conceded 53 goals in 25 matches in the Premiership, that’s 2.12 per game.
Last season they knew they’d conceded too many, letting in a total of 68.
Despite signing new players and attempting to fix the problem, it is still very much there.
And going by the numbers has got worse.
At this rate they are on course to concede a massive 80 goals.
That would be a Premiership record.
When it was the Scottish Premier League, both Aberdeen in 1999/00 and Gretna in 2007/08 conceded 83.
For reference, Dundee’s terrible side of 2018/19 conceded 78 across the campaign. The last time the club conceded 80 goals – the worst defensive record in any Dee season – was in 1934-35.
It must be said, though, that is unlikely. These things usually ease up.
And the 12 goals conceded in the last two games makes up a massive 23% of all the goals conceded in the league this season.
Referee calls
Tony Docherty felt the big decisions in the first half went against his side.
In the ground watching the action unfold, there can be sympathy there.
You need marginal calls to go in your favour at times and that didn’t happen. For the penalty, nobody in the stadium shouted for a spot-kick – not even Auston Trusty.
But VAR poked its nose in and when you do what Mo Sylla did you are running the risk of giving away a soft penalty.
And it looked liked a foul on the sideline ahead of the second goal, Sylla tumbling into Dundee’s technical area after a challenge from Callum McGregor.
VAR, though, couldn’t take a look after the goal because the ball went out of play along with the French midfielder.
Losing that goal right on half-time was vital.
They didn’t get the rub of the green with much on Wednesday night but it still doesn’t excuse a 6-0 thumping.
How to get over it
This is the biggest test of Tony Docherty’s management since he stepped into the job.
He has to find a way to inject some belief back into a side that has been battered and bloodied by conceding 12 with no reply in the past week.
Interestingly he mentioned in his post-match comments to written press that he’d already gone through the goals conceded with the players in the dressing-room.
That would normally be something for the following day. Instead the plan was to get the bad stuff out of the way nice, park the two defeats as much as possible and look to the future.
What has happened has happened, the key as always is how you respond.
Biggest game of the season
That leads us to Airdrieonians in the Scottish Cup.
This is undoubtedly the biggest game of the season.
A perfect chance to ‘get back on the horse’, as Docherty put it at Parkhead.
In classic Dundee fashion, though, what had looked like the perfect draw – at home to a side bottom of the Championship and losing every week – has twisted into something much more risky.
The Dark Blues form has tanked and Airdrie have won three in a row!
Scoring 10 goals in the process.
It’s in banana-skin territory now and Dundee can not afford to go slipping out of the Scottish Cup this weekend.
We’ll be in full crisis mode if that comes to pass and the atmosphere at Dens doesn’t bear thinking about.
The gap, though, between the Premiership and Championship is big. We see that in the play-offs every year now.
It’s up to Dundee to go take the chance they have given themselves after a superb performance in the derby win not so long ago.
And that’s the crux – Dundee have not become a bad side overnight.
What they need to do now is prove they are actually a good side by winning this game and giving their suffering fans a bit of joy on Saturday.
Win and the recovery can start. Lose and who knows where we go from there.
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