After 11 years, 10 months, and 11 days. 4,333 days. 619 weeks, it is with great delight that I don’t have to write about how long Dundee have gone without a league win against Inverness Caledonian Thistle any longer!
It wasn’t our best performance, it wasn’t slick and it definitely wasn’t pretty on the eye but it didn’t matter one bit as we finally managed to achieve the illustrious win that has evaded us for the past eighteen league matches between the two clubs.
Inverness may have had most of the ball and passed it about well but they lacked the killer touch up front and rarely troubled our backline. I lost count of the amount of chances that they hit from outside the box that hit row Z.
When Dundee did see a bit of the ball, it was the man of the moment Craig Wighton who was producing yet again. Having a big target man like Marcus Haber playing beside him has clearly brought out the best in Wighton and as the old cliché goes, long may it continue.
It was a fantastic to see him get his first goal of the season after some of the performances he has put in lately. His turn after receiving the pass from Hateley, running at the defenders and being able to put the ball into the back of the net with a player in front of him and a few bodies closing in on him showed a player that is brimming with confidence at the moment. I may be stating the obvious but we will only see him improve. This is his year.
As much as I was happy to see young Craig score, I was equally delighted to see Kosta Gadzhalov head in the eventual winning goal.
Kosta is a player that I feel has been unlucky with injuries and with other players playing well from keeping him out of the team. He has stuck with it though and made himself one of the first names on the team sheet.
This win also propelled us from sitting bottom of the league to the dizzy heights of seventh. This was even with the inept performance from the man in the middle, Andrew Dallas. Simple things were overlooked from him throughout this game such as the fouls on our front two, a few handballs, a penalty shout and numerous foul throws. Tom Hateley’s booking wasn’t warranted in my eyes and it took him up to the sixtieth minute to even speak to a Caley player.
None the less, this was our third win in four matches and sets us up nicely for the next few games ahead of us.
We visit Rigby Park on Saturday to face a Kilmarnock side who are currently struggling in the league. This doesn’t mean that this will be a walk in the park for us despite our current run of form.
Killie are a team that can be having an absolute nightmare of a run or even season yet still manage to claw their way out of the hole they look like falling into. We cannot afford to be going to their ground thinking it will be an easy three points as that’s not the truth at all. They certainly have the players to cause us and other teams problems but are misfiring at the moment.
If we do see the team leaving with the win on Saturday, it will be another massive victory as we aim to create a gap between us and the bottom of the pack in the lead up to Christmas. With our other game coming against Ross County at Dens before we take on Celtic and Hearts, a result on Saturday may prove to be vital.
MON THE DEE!
