Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Dee outgunned as Buddies get their rewards
Late arrival at park and in box for shot-shy Taysiders
DUNDEE fell to their second straight Premiership defeat after St Mirren ran out 2-0 winners in Paisley.
It was a poor night for the visitors with the Buddies deserving victors thanks to two second-half goals.
A Mikael Mandron volley on 73 minutes broke the deadlock before Olutoysi Olusanya sealed the points for the home side in stoppage time.
That was after they were reduced to 10 men on 84 minutes thanks to James Bolton’s red card.
Just like the Dundee team bus after the half-hour delay due to traffic, the match took a while to kick into gear.
Once it did, it was the home side who enjoyed the better of the opening 45 minutes.
Their best chance came on 24 minutes as Mandron was played in behind but found Trevor Carson equal to his low effort across goal.
Alex Gogic flicked a header just past the post moments later as the Dundee defence creaked.
The Dark Blues struggled to get anything going in the first half but they did have the chance to take the lead on 41 minutes.
A breakaway saw Lyall Cameron play Owen Beck through on goal, clear through from the halfway line.
However, the Liverpool loanee was reluctant to take the chance on his right foot, cut back inside and dragged his shot wide of the post.
The second half started much like the first, with few chances.
That was until a St Mirren cross from the left was punched out by Carson and dropped for Keanu Baccus. The Buddies sub fired the volley off the crossbar and over, however.
And the opener finally came for the hosts as the ball fell for No 9 Mandron to volley goalwards. Carson got a big hand to it but could only divert the ball into the corner of the net.
Carson then denied Lewis Jamieson with 10 minutes to go after a mix-up at the back for Dundee.
Chances were coming to finish the game off before the hosts were reduced to 10 men on 85 minutes after Bolton dived in on Owen Dodgson.
Dundee were flooding forward in their bid for a late leveller but left the back door open.
Sub Olusanya ran through on goal and fired beyond Carson. The flag went up initially for offside but VAR intervened to say the goal was good.
And that was that for Dundee in Paisley.
Kick off was pushed back by 30 minutes after the Dundee team bus was stuck in traffic.
The Dark Blues players arrived just after 7pm after a short journey from Glasgow city centre took 90 minutes following an accident.
Dundee manager Tony Docherty told BBC Scotland: “We left the hotel and we had been stuck in traffic for an hour-and-a-half.
“I think there was a crash. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again. It happened to Rangers earlier in the season. I spoke to (Stephen Robinson), we agreed a time.”
The disruption pre-match may well have affected the visitors after putting in one of their poorest displays of the season.
It was the first time Curtis Main and Michael Mellon had ever played together. And it certainly looked that way in a poor first half for the Dee.
The front two were disjointed and struggled to get their teammates into play. At times that was due to poor long balls coming from the backline but more was needed after the break.
Docherty could be heard in the dugout being unhappy with how easy St Mirren were playing out from defence with his strikers not doing enough.
And 14 minutes into the second half, Main’s time was up. The big striker still looks short of sharpness, with home fans enjoying his early exit.
Mellon followed 10 minutes later with Dundee finishing the match with Amadou Bakayoko and Zach Robinson up top.
But there would be no late impact from the subs with the game drifting away from Dundee.
They just about kept their topsix place thanks to Celtic’s late winner denying Hibs a point.
This defeat, though, leaves a big gap to St Mirren in fifth spot.
Despite having two games in hand, the Buddies now boast a nine-point lead over the Dee.
At this stage of the season, that’s a big lead.
Just two points above 10th now, Dundee need to start putting wins on the board.