Dundee beat Livingston 4-1 in a thrilling Premiership game in West Lothian this afternoon. Amadou Bakayoko put the Dee ahead before Harry Sharp saved a penalty late in the first half. Luke McCowan made it two after the restart before being sent off for a second booking. Livi’s Tete Yengi pulled a goal back from the penalty spot. However, the Dee killed the game with a quick third from substitute Zach Robinson, and his fellow sub Michael Mellon completed the scoring with a fine finish. After the disappointment against Hearts the Dark Blues showed tremendous team spirit to hold off a lively home side, and Dundee’s clinical finishing gave them a deserved win.
There were four changes to the Dee starting eleven. Trevor Carson had a niggling injury which meant he wasn’t risked on an artificial pitch. He was replaced in goal by Harrison Sharp, while Fin Robertson, Mo Sylla and Scott Tiffoney came in for Lyall Cameron, Malachi Boateng and Zach Robinson, who were all on the bench.
The Dark Blues got off to a sluggish start, putting themselves under unnecessary pressure with some carelessness in possession, poor clearances, and soft fouls. This brought Livingston a few corners but no real chances in the first quarter of an hour.
After 15 minutes Bruce Anderson sent Daniel MacKay clear, but Harrison Sharp raced out of his penalty to make a successful tackle.
The Dark Blues had started to show some nice touches in midfield and a fast passing move between Luke McCowan and Scott Tiffoney through the middle led to the opening goal after 19 minutes. McCowan tried to play Dara Costelloe in on goal. James Penrice intercepted, but turned the ball into the path of Amadou BAKAYOKO, who smashed a 12 yard shot past Michael McGovern in the Livingston goal.
Livingston fell out of the game for ten minutes, looking well short of confidence. They couldn’t work their way through the midfield or put the Dee defence under pressure. The Dark Blues launched some promising attacks but couldn’t set up any good chances.
Gradually Livingston forced their way back into the game and started to exert pressure on Dundee. The Dee were handling the attacks well, but Livi could have got back on terms from a penalty late in the half. Jason Holt was running out of the penalty area when he went down under a challenge from McCowan. It seemed outside the box but VAR decided otherwise, presumably because the initial contact was within the penalty area. It didn’t matter because Sharp went the right way to parry Andrew Shinnie’s take spot-kick.
Dundee might have been leading at the interval but they were short of their best. They had to improve if they were to take all the points. For the second half they switched to three at the back, with Ryan Howley and Josh Mulligan coming on for Dara Costelloe and Fin Robertson. Jordan McGhee moved to left centre back, with Howley taking the right wing back slot.
Livingston continued to put Dundee under pressure but the Dee defended well in the penalty area, throwing bodies in the way of shots and protecting Sharp who had few tricky shots to deal with.
A game that had been lively exploded into thrilling, non-stop action for the final 40 minutes of play. Livingston put together their best move of the match to open up Dundee. Penrice’s low cross flew across goal and Daniel MacKay couldn’t quite reach it at the far post. Ryan Howley injured himself in an attempt to stop the cross and was replaced by Malachi Boateng, with Mulligan moving to right wing back.
Michael Mellon came on for Scott Tiffoney and it took him only two minutes to make his mark with a cool assist. Mellon ran into the penalty area onto a pass from McCowan. Instead of shooting he caught out the defence by rolling the ball back into the path of the better placed McCOWAN who took a touch before passing his shot into the corner of the goal.
McCowan had been outstanding and it was disappointing when he picked up a second yellow card after 74 minutes. Two minutes later Livingston were awarded a penalty when Owen Dodgson brought down substitute Joel Noble. Tete YENGI, also a sub, scored.
Pulling a goal back against 10 men should have given Livingston a huge boost, but the Dee sandbagged them by restoring the two goal lead immediately. Again it was Mellon who provided a vital assist. He chased down a long ball that looked a lost cause, and caught the ball by the byline. With the keeper out of position he rolled a pass across goal for Zach ROBINSON, who replaced Bakayoko before the penalty, to stroke home number three and leave the Livingston players and fans in despair. But, oh boy, how the travelling Dees loved that goal!
With 79 minutes gone the points looked safe for the Dee, but Livingston kept fighting. Sharp had to make an astonishing close range save from Bruce Anderson, and then a decent follow up block with his legs.
Dundee were reduced to 10 men and pushed back into defence, but when they broke they had the quality to threaten a further goal. It arrived after 87 minutes. Michael MELLON picked up the ball 25 yards from goal, shimmied across the face of the penalty area, and cracked a low shot inside McGovern’s right hand post. The flag went up for offside, but after a lengthy VAR review the goal stood, to the delight of Mellon and the Dees in the away stand.
There has been much criticism of VAR but Mellon’s debut goal mattered greatly to the lad and it wouldn’t have happened without the officials, who were in radio communication, applying the process properly. The linesman spotted that Boateng was offside. He would have alerted the referee who decided that the Dee was interfering with the keeper’s view and told the linesman to put his flag up. The VAR team would have confirmed the offside decision, and then given the referee the chance to review his decision about interfering with play. The referee changed his mind and the goal stood.
There were 10 minutes of added time and Livi kept plugging away. The Dee defence held firm and the players celebrated an important win with the fans when the final whistle went.
The players took a lot of criticism for losing a two goal lead against Hearts. Today, however, the team showed tremendous spirit and resilience. It was not a great footballing performance, but the passionate, resolute defending, and utterly ruthless finishing made the difference today. Livingston had 63% possession, but Dundee repeatedly stopped them doing anything with it, and hammered Livi with their 37%.
This was an excellent team performance in terms of team spirit, workrate and organisation. It also featured two eye catching individual contributions from youngsters Harry Sharp and, of course, Michael Mellon.
Livingston 3-4-2-1
McGovern
Donnellan (Brandon 57), Obileye, Nottingham
MacKay (Yengi 57), Bradley, Holt, Penrice
Shinnie (c) (Sangare 71), Stephen Kelly (Nouble 57)
Anderson
Unused subs: George (gk), Sean Kelly, Ledingham, Culbert, Lawai.
Goal: Yengi (77 pen).
Booked: none.
Dundee FC 4-2-3-1
Sharp
McGhee, Ashcroft, Shaughnessy (c), Dodgson
Robertson (Mulligan at half time) Sylla
Costelloe (Howley at half time (Boateng 59)), McCowan, Tiffoney (Mellon 60)
Bakayoko (Robinson 71)
Unused substitutes: Legzdins (gk), Astley, Main, Cameron.
Goals: Bakayoko (19), McCowan (62), Robinson (79), Mellon (87).
Booked: Dodgson (foul on MacKay), McCowan (fouls on MacKay and Yengi).
Sent off: McCowan (two bookings).
Referee: Ross Hardie. Assistants: David McGeachie, Gordon Crawford. Fourth Official: William Collum. VAR: Steven McLean. Assistant VAR: Graham McNeillie.
Attendance: 1,906.
Report: James Christie.
