Dundee went down to a narrow 1-0 defeat against St Mirren in Paisley this afternoon. Killian Phillips scored the only goal late in the first half. The Dark Blues had their fair share of the ball, but couldn’t find the quality in open play, and even more disappointingly from set pieces, to save the game.
There were two changes to the Dee starting eleven. Simon Murray was missing through illness and Tony Yogane was on the bench. They were replaced by Ash Hay and Imari Samuels.
Very little happened in a lifeless opening 18 minutes as both teams played their way into the match. Dundee were first to do anything interesting. Drey Wright’s fierce 18 yarder forced a good save from home keeper Shamal George after Fin Robertson took advantage of slack play by the Buddies.
After that St Mirren woke up and had the better of the first half. Alex Gogic sent an 18 yard shot straight at Jon McCracken following a long throw. The Dee keeper made a decent save from Mikael Mandron’s angled shot from 20 yards and Roland Idowu wasn’t far off target with a similar effort.
Dundee were playing some neat football through the midfield but far too often moves that started off well ground to a halt following passes that were mishit or didn’t quite come off.
St Mirren took a deserved lead in the 39th minute when Jonah Ayunga’s low shot from the left of the penalty area was turned in by Killian PHILLIPS right in front of McCracken.
The Dark Blues started the second half well, showing greater intent and drive moving towards the final third. Frustratingly good moves never turned into clear chances. Ethan Hamilton sent a strong shot straight at George from 22 yards. That was all that a promising from the 15 minutes from the Dee amounted to.
After an hour the Dark Blues had a narrow escape when a long pass by Miguel Freckleton sent Jayden Richardon clear on the Dee left and he cracked a fierce low ball across goal. McCracken couldn’t reach it but Samuels cleared before Mandron could take advantage. It was a terrific clearance, but he might have been making amends for being out of position on the left.
Three minutes later Dundee created the first and only chance of the second half. Ash Hay got on the end of Wright’s cross but didn’t connect cleanly with his header which drifted well wide.
Dundee continued to attack without having any real cutting edge. A particular disappointment was the poor quality of the Dee’s set pieces. None of them amounted to anything, largely because the deliveries were well short of what was required to give St Mirren problems.
St Mirren held Dundee at bay effectively and might have nicked a late second goal when they broke from a Dundee long throw. Phillips tried an early shot that flew narrowly wide.
There were good aspects to Dundee’s performance today. The defence coped well, especially at set pieces against a big, strong St Mirren team. Ethan Hamilton and Fin Robertson did well in central midfield with Hamilton particularly effective, showing good skill and strength to drive through the St Mirren midfield. However, the final passes never gave the forward three any opportunities to score or open up the home defence. Whenever Ash Hay, Cameron Congreve or Joe Westley got on the ball they invariably had a well organised defence in front of them.
Dundee weren’t far short of the performance that would have brought some reward today, but where they fell short was crucial. They simply couldn’t do enough in the final third and that cost them dearly.
St Mirren 3-5-2
George
King, Gogic, Freckelton
Richardson, Phillips, Donnelly (Taylor 68), Idowu (McMenamin 75), John (Tanser 86)
Mandron, Ayunga (Nlundulu 75)
Unused substitutes: Mullen (gk), Sobowale, Dijksteel, Calvin, Mooney.
Goal: Phillips (39).
Booked: Donnelly (foul on Hamilton), Phillips (foul on Robertson), King (foul on Yogane).
Dundee FC 3-4-2-1
Jon McCracken
Ryan Astley, Clark Robertson (c), Luke Graham (Billy Koumetio 82)
Drey Wright (Tony Yogane 82), Finlay Robertson (Callum Jones 88), Ethan Hamilton, Imari Samuels
Cameron Congreve, Joe Westley
Ashley Hay (Emile Acquah 75)
Unused substitutes: Kieran O’Hara (gk), Ethan Ingram, Aaron Donnelly, Charlie Reilly, Plamen Galabov.
Booked: Westley (foul on Idowu), Graham (foul on Phillips).
Attendance: 6,382 (633 Dees).
Referee: Matthew MacDermid. Assistants: Gordon Crawford, Craig Ferguson. VAR: Calum Scott. Assistant VAR: Calum Spence.
Report: James Christie.
