The real Dundee is starting to show says Tony Docherty after the Dark Blues registered their second league clean sheet of the season in a 2-0 home win over St Mirren.
The victory opened up an eight-point gap on bottom side St Johnstone and left the Buddies chances of finishing in the top six in real trouble.
It wasn’t the prettiest of displays from Docherty’s side but a welcome shut-out was hard-earned.
And inspirational Simon Murray grabbed a goal in each half to take his scoring tally this season to 21.
A tally that should earn him a Scotland call insists his manager.
“This is why I went all out in the summer with the support of the club to get Simon here,” Docherty said of his frontman.
“You see his relationship with the fans too. That drives him and gets more out of him.
“He’s like that in training as well, he’s an inspiration.
“If we keep a clean sheet, there’s always goals in us when Simon is there.
“Simon is pivotal player in the team.
“I said before about possible international recognition and why not?
“He’s the highest scoring Scottish player in the league right now. Every opportunity he gets, he scores.
“That second goal today was a really tough finish.
“Simon is grounded, he’ll keep going the way he’s going.”
The clean sheet, though, showed a lot about the character in this team says Docherty after he welcomed Clark Robertson back to the centre of defence.
“Last week was tough, losing a last-minute goal but they put that disappointment behind them and attack the next game,” added the Dee boss.
“Huge credit to the players and the biggest thing for me was keeping the clean sheet.
“I said before the game when I get the experience back in the team then you will see the real us.
“When they are back it allows the brave attacking play to win games.
“It was a real team performance to keep a clean sheet.”
Fast start
Tony Docherty made just one change to the Dundee team that faced Rangers last weekend – the experience of Clark Robertson chosen over the youth of Aaron Donnelly.
St Mirren left top scorer Toyosi Olusanya on the bench alongside Mikael Mandron as Jonah Ayunga led the line for the Buddies.
But it was the man leading the line for the home side that made the difference.
For the second game running Murray scored within 90 seconds. Jordan McGhee’s low cross dropped perfectly in front of the striker and he made no mistake in finding the corner.
The Dark Blues, though, couldn’t build on the early lead. Murray sent a header over shortly afterwards but the rest of the half belonged to the Buddies.
Killian Phillips headed straight at Trevor Carson on nine minutes and Declan John saw a fierce effort blocked well by Joe Shaughnessy shortly before half-time.
But there was no way through the home defence.
Second half shut-out
The second period followed a similar pattern to the first – St Mirren pushing and pressing but Dundee standing up to the challenge.
Caolan Boyd-Munce shot over and a Mark O’Hara free-kick brought a save from Carson.
But the visitors couldn’t find a way through and found themselves 2-0 down just after the hour.
There was no danger for goalkeeper Zac Hemming. Until he hit a clearance off Simon Murray.
The Dundee striker took time to find his bearings as the ball dropped from the sky but his finish from 35 yards was unerring as his long-ranger rolled into the corner.
From there it was about seeing the game out. O’Hara headed over, Richard Taylor hit the bar and sub Olusanya saw an effort saved by Carson.
Shaughnessy and Robertson headed and cleared everything that came their way, Billy Koumetio returning helped out too and Dundee earned their clean sheet.
With that they moved eight points clear of bottom side St Johnstone ahead of their Sunday clash with Celtic and to within a point of Kilmarnock and Ross County.
Injury update
The second half did, though, see two players limp off as St Mirren pushed to get back into the game.
First Seun Adewumi on 72 minutes and then the returning Clark Robertson sat down on the turf on 78 minutes.
“Clark is fine,” Docherty said.
“He just blew up a little bit with 17 minutes to go.
“Big Billy Koumetio came on, we’ve missed him, and I thought he did a great job.
“The centre-backs were excellent.
“Seun is fine as well. We ask him to do a lot of work and it was just tiredness.
“But we had Seb Palmer-Houlden coming on and he did well.”
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