Dundee 1
Partick Thistle 0
League (Division One)

Match Report

ocky Scott sent out an unchanged team in an aggressive formation as the Dees tried to get their promotion bid back on track after recent stumbles. With three at the back, and Gary Harkins playing in the hole behind the strikers, Dundee's formation often looked like 3-4-3, rather than the more conventional 3-5-2.

After an emotional minute's applause, when both teams lined up in front of the Bobby Cox stand, Dundee started the match attacking the stand named after their greatest ever captain.

Dundee had an early let off when Alan Archibald headed well wide from a Partick free kick when he had time to do better. It was a costly miss because Dundee went straight up the park to score the winning goal after six minutes. Craig Forsyth headed the ball out to Griffiths wide on the left. Sparky's first cross was blocked and came back to him, leaving him in a better position. He duly whipped over a fierce outswinger to the near post. Keeper Tuffey lunged to fist the ball away, but it fell kindly for Eric Paton running in from the right to blast his shot high into the net from 15 yards, with the aid of a slight deflection that left Tuffey helpless.

Partick's early miss began to look even more wasteful as the half wore on. They had plenty of possession but all the neat passing and controlled football were in areas of the pitch that didn't hurt Dundee. Their strikers, Lovell and Buchanan, looked good on the ball, but they had no good chances and were reduced to heading deep or out wide to try and find space.

Dundee meanwhile with less of the ball were breaking faster through the midfield, trying to release the lively strikers, especially Griffiths, whose pace and control again had opposing defenders struggling.

Thistle fleetingly thought they had an equaliser on the half hour. Douglas came to collect a high free kick, but dropped the ball when he was sandwiched between two visitors. Buchanan turned the ball into the empty net, but the referee had already awarded a free kick.

Three minutes into the second half Ben Hutchinson missed a great chance to give Dundee a two goal lead. Griffiths took a quick throw out from Douglas, skinned his marker, and raced into space down the left. He rolled the ball across the penalty area into the path of Hutchinson who blasted the ball past the far post as the home fans were getting ready to celebrate.

Thistle sent on Donnelly to replace Buchanan, who looked to be carrying a slight knock. This change merely confirmed Thistle's tendency to pass their way round the outside of the Dee defence without every penetrating it. Douglas had a few straightforward long range shots to deal with, but otherwise his game consisted of collecting high crosses and overhit final balls.

Dundee's defence had an awful Keystone Cops passage of play midway through the second half when normally reliable defenders fell over or gave the ball away, but fortunately that lasted only about a minute before concentration and discipline was reasserted.

After Hutchinson's miss neither side managed to create a good chance, though Gary Harkins had a marvellous run down the left and into the penalty area that produced panic in the Thistle goalmouth before the ball was hacked clear. This was not one of Gary's better games, but the pitch was bumpy and very difficult for players who wanted to run with the ball under control. Griffiths managed the trick better than anyone else on the field, but even he was frustrated by the way the ball was jumping around rather than running smoothly.

The poor pitch meant that the ball was in the air more than it should have been, and this probably gave the defenders an easier time than they expected. Certainly as the game wore on both defences looked increasingly comfortable.

Thistle tried frantically to get the ball forward in the later stages, but they lacked penetration and resorted to optimistic long balls or crosses from deep. In injury time they had an appeal for a penalty when Conroy went down. It may have looked convincing from the Main Stand, but seemed extremely optimistic from behind the goal.

This was a difficult game for the Dees against good opponents. It would have been a poor game for a neutral to watch, and must have been very frustrating for the Thistle fans who saw their moves founder time and again against the Dee's defensive wall.

Dundee's back three were solid apart from their brief comedy moment, and they were well protected by Kerr and Klimpl in midfield.

Of the midfielders and strikers, only Griffiths looked at the top of his game, but there was no shortage of effort from the rest It wasn't pretty, but the three points are hugely welcome to everyone at Dens on a day when there were more tears than smiles

Match report written by James Christie - Official Dundee website