Tony Docherty reveals plan to ensure Dundee emerge stronger after international break

Tony Docherty has vowed Dundee will come out of the international break stronger after falling to a fourth straight defeat last weekend.

The Dark Blues are suffering through their stickiest patch of the season after a very promising start that ended with the September international break.

Since then it has been straight defeats and a tale of too many soft goals conceded, culminating in the weekend collapse at home to Kilmarnock.

That September breather was a momentum breaker for the Dee.

This one, though, is far more welcome after the damaging home defeat.

Docherty said: “It is a good time to have a break. The last international break we were flying and didn’t really want that break.

“This one is different.

“It allows us to work in-house and do a lot of work to make sure we come out of it stronger.

“That’s something we will endeavour to do.

“We have a closed door game on Wednesday and there was a reserve game on Tuesday.

“The players will be training and very much working on things we need to improve.

“We know we need to improve.

“There is a new slate now. We have two games coming up, Motherwell and St Johnstone, and we need to make sure we are in much better shape.

“We now have the chance to reset and go again.

“All the answers are in the building here and we’re really confident we have got enough really good individuals to come out of this international break really positively for the next round of games.”

Kilmarnock mistakes must be acknowledged

Docherty was concerned to see his side collapse so completely in those closing stages against Kilmarnock.

With the Dark Blues 2-0 to the good, Matty Kennedy’s 86th minute strike proved a key point in the game as Killie equalised two minutes later before winning the game in stoppage time.

The Dundee boss plans to address that on the training ground over the next 10 days.

“The first goal going in has a huge impact, we need to stop the bleeding but we don’t do that,” the Dens gaffer added.

“Whether that’s fatigue but we make make poor decisions.

“I don’t shy away from that. We have a long time now to address that.

“It’s a relatively new group we have together and we have young players probably being a bit naïve in decision-making.

“It’s something as a manager and coaching staff we don’t shy away from and we’ll be working as hard as we can to ensure we don’t encounter the same situation again.

“There has to be an acknowledgement of the mistakes that we’ve made.

“It’s human error. We need to make sure we can do all we can, whether individually or as a collective, that when we are in that position we don’t make the same mistakes.”

The hard training won’t all be about hammering the bad points from Saturday’s performance.

Docherty is determined to ensure his players don’t forget the good things they did.

He added: “The players needed picked up because of the manner of the game.

“There was so much up to their first goal to be proud about with the level of performance.

“We did so many things right.

“The level of performance is really good but we need to convert that into results.

“The thing to address is when we lose that first goal, we then look vulnerable. That’s something we can work on.

“It’s something we will spend time working on.”

Dundee beat Kilmarnock in the Reserves League on Tuesday, with Sonny Paterson grabbing the only goal for the young side at Gayfield.