David Turnbull’s late winner at Fir Park was one of three simultaneous sliding-doors moments on Saturday [along with Danny Mullen’s equaliser for St Mirren against St Johnstone and Aaron McGowan’s leveller for Hamilton against Livingston] which conspired to condemn Dundee to second-tier football next season.
Of course, it is still mathematically possible for them to survive but that would require results elsewhere to work in their favour. Dundee will also need to win their three remaining fixtures and, having won only three of their 29 games under manager Jim McIntyre, that prospect is so remote you would need the Hobby-Eberly Telescope to see it.
Those dramatic denouements doomed Dundee and veteran striker Kenny Miller is well aware of how damaging this defeat – against opponents who were reduced to 10 men when Alex Gorrin was shown a second yellow card with 32 minutes still to play – will prove to be.
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“I don’t think we could have had a worse minute over the course of all three games for Dundee,” he said.”The others get late goals and we concede, albeit draws are not enough at this stage anyway. We need to be turning draws into wins but certainly not defeats.
“We need points, it’s as simple as that and scoring three goals away from home, that should be enough to get you something.”
Unfortunately, with remedial defending like theirs, Dundee would probably need to score five to guarantee a point. They were all over the place here, surrendering the lead 60 seconds after opening the scoring through Martin Woods to Turnbull and then conceding to a James Scott leveller two minutes after Ethan Robson made it 2-1.
Bad teams do that, of course. They lack discipline and game management and they are propping up the Ladbrokes Premiership for a reason. At 3-3 - Nathan Ralph equalised two minutes after Gboly Ariyibi scored - and a man up, they were still second-best but squandered opportunities on the break through poor decision-making.
They did hit the post twice but Seny Dieng saved well from Turnbull and referee Kevin Clancy awarded a penalty kick for Genseric Kusunga’s handball and then inexplicably reversed his decision on the say-so off his assistant, Jordan Stokoe, whose view of the incident was inferior to Clancy’s.
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Turnbull then smacked the crossbar with his favoured right foot and converted the rebound with his “swinger” of a left, an impressively emphatic finish and his ninth league goal of 2019; Dundee have scored 12 between them this year.
At 19, his emergence six months ago has seen him become one of the rising stars of the Scottish game but he is in no rush to leave the Lanarkshire club, unlike winger Jake Hastie, who will join Rangers at the end of the season.
“I’m happy here, keeping on doing what I’m doing and helping the team,” he said. “Next season I just want to work hard, starting when we report back, and kick on again.
“Have I spoken to Jake? Not really; I’m just happy for him. We’ll see where it takes him but I hope he does as well as he can do and I’m sure he will.”
The teenager will be playing top-tier football next season but for 39-year-old Miller, that may be coming to an end.
“Look, we need to go and win our last three games and even that might not be enough,” he said. “We’re playing against the teams we’re trying to haul back into it. Hamilton at home on Saturday becomes huge and we must find a way to win - but that’s nine straight losses so it’s not going to be easy.
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“If we can claw our way back and find ourselves in the play-off then we’ll be looking at it as being a real positive because of the position we find ourselves in just now.”
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