Calm heads will ensure Dundee prevail insists vice-captain Trevor Carson.
The Dark Blues remain in the mix for relegation after a 1-1 draw at home to bottom side St Johnstone on Saturday.
The point did, though, stop a dreadful run of five straight defeats in the Premiership.
That run saw Dundee drop from seventh at the start of February to 11th at the end of February with consecutive 6-0 defeats to Hearts and Celtic hitting the Dark Blues hard.
“It’s obviously had a massive knock on confidence,” Carson said of those two heavy defeats.
“We’ve got quite a young squad.
“I don’t think I have had it in my career. In a 20-year career I’ve never had back-to-back 6-0 defeats.
“Even as an experienced player, it does knock your confidence.
“We’ve been notorious for bouncing back from knocks like that.
“Unfortunately, we haven’t over the past few weeks.
“But hopefully that result [against St Johnstone] is a resurgence that we can kick on from.
“We’ve got the luxury of a cup game coming up that we can just solely focus on that and not worry about the league.
“We’ve got to make sure this is a springboard to kick on.
“We’re not jumping off the rooftops with a point.
“But on the flipside, to go through what we’ve been through, we’ve got to see this as result as a positive.”
Calmness
Manager Tony Docherty was delighted to have more experienced heads to count upon at the weekend.
Captain Joe Shaughnessy made his first start of the season while Carson came back in for the first time since that Celtic match and Simon Murray found the net for the 17th time this season.
Carson knows it’s up to the older players to help lead the youngsters.
“You’ve got to bring that calmness as an experienced player,” he said.
“But the other boys are well aware that they’ve got to do their bit as well.
“You look at Simon Murray. Simon’s a perfect example. He leads on the pitch.
“He drives people forward and people feed off that. Myself and Joe, our experience is great too.
“You just do it by doing the right things every day in training.
“Come matchdays, it’s about being that calming influence.
“It’s easy to get worked up because of where we are at the minute. But being over-excited can have an adverse effect at the same time.
“Every game now is going to be high pressure and a lot at stake.
“As much as we want to get the boys going and geed up, that’s what the fans want to see by being front foot and aggressive, but sometimes that can lead to making bad mistakes when we press at the wrong time.
“It’s just having that balance of being up for the fight and ready to go but at the same time making smart decisions on the pitch.
“We’ve got to be the voices driving that.”
‘That hurt’
Dundee do have a break in league action now with a Scottish Cup trip to Hearts coming on Friday night.
Carson reckons it’s a perfect chance to forget the struggles in the league of late by booking a place at Hampden.
And a chance to earn a bit of revenge for the 6-0 hammering at Dens Park that led to Dundee’s bad run.
“We’ve got to use that as a bit of motivation,” Carson added.
“Not that you need motivation to go to Tynecastle in the quarter-final of the Scottish Cup.
“But that hurt. You look back, it did lead to a bit of a downfall.
“But after the second half at Motherwell and then the performance against St Johnstone, I believe it’s a different dressing-room than what it was two or three weeks ago in terms of belief.
“Hopefully, that was our rock bottom at Motherwell on Wednesday night.
“This is the start of an upward curve.
“But again, it’s up to us to do it. All this is words.
“You can use your experience as much as you want.
“But we know we have to step up as a team, every single one of us.”
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