PAUL HARTLEY

For the last few months, our objective has always been to get to tonight’s final game against Morton with our season still alive.

Despite the horrendous selection problems we have had to endure, the players have not only done that, they have made sure that survival is now in our own hands, even if that means going through the play-offs.

After the run of defeats, and ten without a win, the boys had to dig deep, and the four points we picked up at Gayfield and Dens transformed the situation at the bottom.

We were helped last Saturday when Partick Thistle beat Arbroath, so all three clubs in the relegation zone have something massive to play for this evening.

The injuries we have suffered have not helped our cause, and in my dozen years in management, I have never known a casualty list such as the one we have experienced over the past few months. Having long since lost Fraser Fyvie and Brody Paterson for the season, Blair Yule and Miko Virtanen also had their campaigns ended, and last weekend we were also without Michael O’Halloran and Leighton McIntosh.

In the recent games against Hamilton and Arbroath I had to make a total of four enforced first half changes. That has got to be unprecedented!

It has meant us having to be flexible, to try a few things out, and to play some formations that we haven’t previously used this season, but somehow we have battled through it all, and the last couple of performances have been outstanding defensively.

That has been so good to see, given the issues we’ve had at the back for much of the campaign, and the players took such confidence from the win and clean sheet at Arbroath. They brought that into the Dundee game and built on it, and it says much about the display that Scott Fox didn’t have serious save to make until deep into stoppage time.

We are going to have to show the same resolve and concentration levels tonight, and with the squad still stretched to its limit, I’m going to have to ask the boys to once more pull out all the stops.

We have given ourselves a chance to stay up, and that’s all I could ask for.

Over the piece, I know this season hasn’t been good enough throughout, and everyone at the club is well aware of that. It is a situation which will be addressed over the summer, but for now, all our attention has to be focused on what will be a massive ninety minutes against Morton.

Your support has been much appreciated over the past nine or ten months, and we will need you again this evening. If we all pull together, on and off the pitch, it could yet be a satisfactory end to the campaign, so please give the team all the backing you can tonight.

Enjoy the match!

Paul Hartley

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