Paul Hartley accepted that he is facing the biggest challenge of his management career as Dundee's win-less Premiership run was extended to eight matches by 10 man Ross County at Dens Park yesterday.
"I think so, but as a group and a staff we've got to just keep working hard and try to get through this," the home team's manager acknowledged, when asked if that was so.
Following three successive title successes in his first three years in management the Dundee manager has entered 2015 suddenly confronted by a challenge of a very different sort, his problems amplified by a grim festive period that has brought a record derby defeat sandwiched by two home meetings with the bottom team in the Premiership which have accrued a grand total of one point.
Yesterday's circumstances made it worse still since referee Craig Thomson's decision that both Terry Dunfield's feet were off the ground as he challenged Paul McGinn, resulting in that early red card, should have proved decisive.
However it only seemed to intensify the pressure on Dundee, re-setting the expectation level as it did on a day when perspiration rather than inspiration had always been the priority.
In that regard it was the visitors who initially reacted better to the change in their numbers as, particularly after a readjustment with Scott Boyd replacing Joe Cardle, they raised their effort levels while Dundee seemed uncertain of how to take make the advantage pay.
Evidence of how confidence is struggling when Greg Stewart seemed to have set David Clarkson up for a virtual tap in only for the striker, whose was banging them in so freely earlier in the season, to carve his left-footed effort wide.
That was clearly the best chance of the half and while Dundee were the better side thereafter there was always going to be nervousness until they got off the mark.
They duly did early in the second when Gary Irvine swept the ball across from the left into the path of James McAlister at the near side of the box whose first time left footed strike was too good for Antonio Reguero as he dived to his left.
A second should have been registered almost immediately, but an attempt from Luka Tankulic, just after he replaced David Clarkson, hit the outside of Reguero's right post and they were made to pay when Paul McGowan gave the ball away to Filip Kiss and his cross from the right beat the last Dundee man, allowing Craig Curran to mark his debut for his new club by stretching to meet it with the outside of his right foot and claim the equaliser.
Where his counterpart is entering uncharted territory as a manager, then, the sort of scrap for survival his team is now engaged in is just what Jim McIntyre, Ross County's boss, signed up for when he took over there and, after reserving judgement on the red card incident until he can see clearer video evidence, he was understandably delighted.
"You know if you go down to 10 men that early it's going to take a monumental effort and that's exactly what we got from the players... getting a point, it's a fabulous day for us," he said.
Hartley, meanwhile, can perhaps take some solace from the fact that the slump in form has happened immediately ahead of an into a transfer window.
To that end he liked what he saw of Hibs loanee Alex Harris on his debut yesterday, while he has been sufficiently impressed by the way former Bulgarian under-21 international Kostadin Ghadzalov has trialled to sign him yesterday.
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