THE Dundee players wore the same pained expression as they were finally made to face up to relegation from the Clydesdale Bank Premier League yesterday.
A draw with Aberdeen left them too far from 11th-place St Mirren with too little time to do anything more about it and it was clear where the Dens Park squad were hurting the most: this result was like a swift kick in the unmentionables.
They had left themselves exposed as they sought to span the gap and catch up with St Mirren, a side that had offered hope with a defeat on Saturday. Dundee still needed to win against Aberdeen, though. And then again against Kilmarnock. And again away to Hibernian. It seemed unlikely that the Tayside club would have made it that far, but at least they would have gone down swinging.
Instead they felt as like Aberdeen knocked them down with a sucker punch. Jim McAlister had the home side ahead after just 20 minutes but Peter Pawlett won a controversial penalty midway through the second half, going over under the attention of Lewis Toshney. Niall McGinn converted and Dundee reacted with a snort of derision, a disgruntled gasp. Yet the Dens Park side still drew last breath 1-1 yesterday.
At least they did not go quietly, but with John Brown in the dug out that was never likely to be the case. There are supposed to be five stages of grief. The Dundee manager was fixed only on one yesterday.
"You expect officials to do their job and it makes a mockery of it. I am disappointed for all the fans. Aberdeen didn't look as if they were going to threaten us," said Brown, who will still be in charge next season after signing a two-year contract last month. "I haven't really criticised the player [Pawlett] yet but to take a dive, he should be ashamed of himself. But there you go. How many cheats are there in the game?
"That has taken us down. That decision has taken us down and it's a disgrace. That is where you think [about] technology. For 30 seconds, whether it's a sending off or other key moments, you could stop the game when players are down faking injury or whatever. But they can't bring in that technology and it's a disgrace."
Brown had replaced Barry Smith as manager in February and inherited a 15-point deficit at the bottom of the table. There have been plenty of times this season that Dundee might have merited relegation; that 4-1 defeat by Inverness Caledonian Thistle in October; that 5-0 defeat by Celtic in February; and pretty much any match in which they met city rivals United.
Yet Brown was in charge of just two of those – a 2-1 cup defeat by United and a draw in a league trip to Tannadice – and, taken in isolation at least, his record was worthy of greater reward.
"Dundee are in good hands, there is no question about that," said Derek McInnes, the Aberdeen manager. "When you see what Bomber and his players have put into it, there is a feeling of sympathy for that. But he's been in the game longer than me and knows what it will take to get back."
Brown will likely have imagined yesterday that his side would stave off relegation once again, too, with both John Baird and Gary Harkins testing Aberdeen before McAlister gave Dundee the lead. The midfielder has been a committed presence all season, but he found a bit of luck after 20 minutes – his volley taking a deflection land past Jamie Langfield.
The Aberdeen goalkeeper is one of the few players still under contract at Aberdeen beyond the summer and McInnes has already put plans into action to alter his personnel, inviting striker Rhys Murphy to train with a view to getting a deal. The 22-year-old was once on the books at Arsenal but spent last season with Dutch second division club Telstar.
McInnes will intend on assessing how he might link up with McGinn, whose penalty accounted for his 20th goal of the campaign. The striker seemed to show few issues with celebrating it, either, despite the accusations that Pawlett had gone down all too easily.
After all, it was Dundee that would be left in a crumpled heap.
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