Dundee had the chance to inflict a damaging blow on fellow Premiership strugglers Partick Thistle earlier in the season but didn’t take it.
And Dark Blues’ defender Cammy Kerr knows they can’t afford a repeat.
Back in October the Dens Park men were a goal in front of Thistle at Firhill and had several chances to put the game to bed – including from the penalty spot.
That failure to show a ruthless streak was punished by an injury-time winner for the Jags.
And if Dundee lose to Alan Archibald’s men again tomorrow, they’ll be back at the bottom of the table.
Kerr said: “Last time we played Partick we had a great opportunity.
“It was a massive miss because we lost a game we should have won. That can’t happen again.”
The stakes have been raised by Thistle’s win against Motherwell in midweek and back to back Dundee defeats.
Manager Neil McCann left the players in no doubt about his feelings regarding the Tuesday night loss to Hearts and Kerr insisted that the players have taken it on the chin.
He said: “We definitely can and should do better than we did on Tuesday. There’s no doubt about that.
“After the game the gaffer was not happy because we’ve got to a level now that has risen and he says we should make sure we are performing at those levels.
“And the coaching staff should be able to trust us that we will perform at those levels.
“If we’re not doing it and we slip below what we’re capable of, there’s obviously reason to be disappointed.
“If that’s the case, we have to accept the criticism from the gaffer. It’s only fair.”
The “very flat” Tynecastle display wasn’t in keeping with what went before.
“When we lost to Aberdeen last week we were very unlucky,” Kerr reflected.
“And before that we go and beat Rangers, then go up to Dingwall and get a great result, with a very good performance.
“We also got a clean sheet up there, which is something we hadn’t been getting recently. It was the first one in the Premiership this season and it gave us something to build on.
“On Tuesday, though, I just felt our performance was very flat. We were not on it the way we should have been.
“There was not much to say. We couldn’t look at it and say we did well and maybe we were a bit unlucky.
“We huffed and puffed and we didn’t get forward like we know we can.”
Kerr added: “We are still a new team and there might be times when we have these dips but we are a close-knit group and we work hard on doing the right things, so we take it really badly when things like this happen.
“After the last few results and performances, we are expecting so much. Not necessarily that we are going to win every week, because that’s not going to happen in this league, but we do expect to keep to the standards we’ve shown we’re capable of.
“We need to make sure that on Saturday we come back to those standards again.”
