Tony Docherty questions Dundee ‘mindset’ in Hibs thumping

Tony Docherty admits Dundee have a big fortnight ahead of them after Sunday’s 4-0 thumping at Hibs.

With the Scottish Cup semi-finals taking centre stage next weekend the Dark Blues have two weeks to lick their wounds after a punishing afternoon in the capital.

With five matches left to climb above their current position in the relegation play-off spot, there is plenty to be done at the club’s Gardyne training centre.

“Absolutely, yes,” Docherty said.

“But it’s not really working hard at this stage of the season, it’s working smart.

“We’ve looked at the Hibs game in terms of the goals and some of the opportunities we’ve presented to Hibs. We need to do better as a team.

“I said at the very start of the game, teams keep a clean sheet. As a team, you don’t look at just the defenders, it’s the attacking players that can help the midfielders.

“It’s the midfielders that can help the defenders and that can help the goalkeepers.

“We’re all in this together and we need to make sure that is a reference point going forward.

“There are two reference points, our previous four performances and that first half against Hibs.

“If we do one and not the other, we’ll give ourselves a problem.”

Mindset

Dundee don’t yet know who their next opponent will be with the post-split fixtures expected to be announced at the start of this week.

But Docherty knows the performance just has to be better if his side are going to get out of relegation trouble.

“We’ve shown in recent weeks that we’re more than capable of a level of performance,” he added

“I’m stressing that to the players.

“Sometimes it’s a mindset.

“We maybe came were on the back foot a little bit because of Hib’s reputation.

“I don’t want my team to be that and I’ve stressed that point.

“We’re a good side and when we do things properly, we’re a difficult team to play against.

“But Sunday was a disappointment.

“We did chase the game a little bit. It was 2-0 and we put on subs and we tried to chase it a little bit.

“But to lose the goals and the manner we lost them, that’s difficult to deal with.”