Dundee owe it to their fans to send city rivals Dundee United out of the Scottish Cup, according to fifth-round goalscorer Jim McAlister.
The midfielder, who scored the first of the Dark Blues’ five against his old club Morton on Sunday, described the reaction of the Dens Park squad to the quarter-final draw as “pure excitement”.
The league campaign has not gone as the Dundee players would have hoped, and that includes two derby defeats already.
Turning their SPL fortunes around is the short-term priority but McAlister believes sending United out of the cup would be the perfect gift to their fans.
“It’s a cracker,” he said.
“They’ve enjoyed the upper hand in the two previous occasions so we want to be the ones celebrating this time.
“Even more so, we would love to repay our fans by getting through to the semi-final stages. We know what it means to the punters to put one over their main rivals.
“I was blown away by my first taste of the Dundee derby atmosphere at Tannadice back in August and my biggest regret was that we weren’t able to put on a better show that day when we lost 3-0.
“Our supporters have been through a lot this season in the league and it’s never nice losing to your biggest rivals in back-to-back fixtures.
“But we’ve now got this opportunity coming up to give them something to shout about and hopefully we can do it for them.”
He added: “When we heard the draw our reaction was one of pure excitement.
“These ties don’t come round all that often and there’s the added spice with the winner going to be just 90 minutes away from the final.”
Despite the gap between themselves and the team nearest to them in the SPL table, Ross County, growing to 14 points since the winter break, there was a feeling at Dens that their form was improving.
That belief has been bolstered by their weekend cup performance and they want to keep the ball rolling when the Staggies visit Dens on Friday night.
McAlister said: “It’s given the whole place a lift. I think the fact we scored five goals and played well shows us what we can do on our day.”