IT remains to be seen just how much Motherwell will rue this gloomy week in November.
After two successive home games against both Dundee sides, the Lanarkshire men have taken just one point from a possible six, despite dominating both encounters.
Stuart McCall's men showed admirable determination to come from behind and take something from this stalemate but more is required if they are to replicate the lofty ambitions which arose from last season's exploits.
McCall said: "It was frustrating and we just can't buy a win at home. We didn't play as well as we have done in recent games and I think we needed to score first. When they scored first it caused us anxiety and although the timing of the equaliser was great [just before half-time], I felt we huffed and puffed after the break. Unfortunately things are just not going for us."
The mindless antics of a small section of the Dundee support who ruined the start of the minute's silence in respect of Remembrance Day provided an unsavoury preamble to this fixture.
Motherwell started brightly, though, and just as they had against Dundee's city rivals in midweek, they peppered the opposition goal. However, veteran goalkeeper Rab Douglas denied both Nicky Law and Keith Lasley in impressive fashion.
The home side's recurring failure to translate dominance into goals had predictable consequences when, just before the half-hour mark, Nicky Riley drove through the middle of the their and stroked a controlled finish past the helpless Darren Randolph after his initial effort had been blocked by Tom Hateley.
However, in the final attack of the first half, the hosts eventually earned a deserved reward for their play when Henrik Ojamaa's powerful 16-yard drive was parried by Douglas and Michael Higdon stroked home the loose ball from point-blank range.
Most of the opening exchanges after the interval amounted to very little and it took until the 73rd minute for either side to threaten again, with the visitors' Declan Gallacher seeing his volley was deflected off Nicky Law and brilliantly tipped over by Randolph.
At the other end, Douglas superbly blocked a ferocious Danny Murphy drive as Motherwell began to turn the screw.
But try as they might, McCall's men failed to find a winner and when substitute Bob McHugh's diagonal injury-time strike screwed wide, a share of the spoils was confirmed.
After seeing his side consolidate their success over Hearts with a hard-fought point on the road, which took the Dens Park men to within four points of second-bottom St Mirren, manager Barry Smith was satisfied with his lot.
He said: "I was very happy with the overall performance. The only disappointment was the timing of the Motherwell goal. But we have taken confidence from our last couple of performances and we played some good stuff.
"There is a long way to go in this league and we just have to concentrate on what we do. It is all about consistency for us and we have started to get that in recent weeks."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article