The Match: Dundee v Dundee United
Dens Park and Tannadice are with 200 yards of one another but Dundee’s Scottish Cup win bridged a form gap
“You saw the mentality, the resilience and character of the team to see out the game and get a clean sheet,” said Dundee manager Tony Docherty after his team’s 1-0 win over Scottish Premiership rivals Dundee United in the Scottish Cup Fourth Round.
“I just think, everything considered – I've got five centre-halves out – to put in that performance speaks volumes. I've got good players and we're very good on the counter attack.
"They put us under pressure, but my lads stood up to that."
It was indeed a resolute defensive performance from the Dark Blues. They were later drawn at home again in the last sixteen against Airdrieonians, the team thirteen points adrift at the bottom of the Championship.
Dundee United were slight favourites before kick-off at Dens. Like Celtic and Rangers, the Tangerines have taken advantage of Aberdeen’s collapse and now occupy third place in the Premiership table with only the Old Firm above them.
United manager Jim Goodwin has been a picture of measured composure throughout their rise up the table. He tends to be in adversity too. But it’s been quite a rise – United have lost two of their last twelve in the Premiership and won four of the last five. Celtic, Rangers and Aberdeen have all failed to beat them in the last few months.
2025 began with a Dundee derby, also at Dens. United won 2-1 after going behind to a Simon Murray goal. It was par for the course: the last derby win for the Dark Blues was in 2017 and even that was in the League Cup.
Enmity is a curious force in football. Rival teams in cities all over the world somehow become ineffective or invincible against specific opposition for extended stretches of history. Dominance persists. Then, finally, it breaks.
Simon Murray is a beautiful bloody nuisance
It took Docherty’s Dundee just 57 seconds to take the lead and crank the febrile atmosphere to a whole new level.
Finlay Robertson’s corners would become a significant problem for United but we didn’t know that yet. The first was glanced in by Dundonian former United striker Simon Murray but more harrowing still was the fact that it should never have been a corner in the first place.
Murray is a footballer unlike any other. He was born in Dundee and his career meandered through United, Hibernian, Dundee on loan and even a difficult period in South Africa before prolific spells with Queen’s Park and then Ross County catapulted him to the top of the Dark Blues’ shopping list last summer.
If ever a player were built for the modern Scottish game, late-career Simon Murray might be him.
Without the ball he’s all sharp points and craggy angles, scrapping for every sniff of possession and running down every loose ball and plenty of lost causes into the bargain. Defenders who play against Murray – and it’s usually only Murray, mind you – end the match carrying physical evidence of the experience.
With the ball he’s increasingly deadly in front of goal and seems to bring more to Dundee’s all-round attacking play as the weeks go by. There’s light to go with the shade and play to go with the fight. It makes for a formidable uniquely constructed for the middle of the Premiership.
Murray’s post-match celebrations long after his goal were endearing in their unbridled glee. Derbies really matter when you have to ring the enemy’s doorbell to get your ball back after yeeting it over the fence.
Takin’ Lyall?
So early was the goal that it bent the game’s destiny out of shape. Gradually, two players emerged from the midfield morass with a foot on the ball and an idea in the brain.
United’s likeliest path to a goal in open play was through Vicko Ševelj. The 24-year-old Croatian scored the equalising goal in the Premiership derby and the more he got on the ball in this cup tie, the better the Tangerines were.
If Ševelj’s influence finally possessed the game of some rhythm, Dundee’s Lyall Cameron sought to take advantage of it.
Like Murray, the 22-year-old is Dundonian to the bone and no stranger to a tangerine shirt. Cameron’s impact grew as the game developed, giving the Dark Blues a measure of calmness in possession, a willingness to carry the ball out of the melee into more advanced positions, and the ability to pick a pass through trouble.
He should have made it 2-0 early in the second half. Receiving the ball at the top of the box with 49 minutes played, he fired over Jack Walton’s crossbar when he had to hit the target and make the United goalkeeper work as a minimum.
Cameron has scored five goals and made another four in the Premiership this season but his future is the subject of intensifying speculation. He’s out of contract in the summer and Rangers are circling with hopes of grabbing a January bargain.
That’s the way of Scottish football. Should Cameron leave, he’d be a significant physical loss but pure monetary profit on the books. The game within the game for most clubs even in the top division is to make sure there’s another Lyall Cameron coming up behind him.
Of chances untaken
Dundee weren’t without their attacking moments. Murray curled a shot just off-target in the first few minutes and Aaron Donnelly headed over from another Robertson corner in the middle of the first half.
But the goal set the pattern early. United pushed for an equaliser. The Dark Blues repelled them.
Ross Graham should have scored from Ševelj’s cross on half an hour and the centre back’s header from a Luca Stephenson delivery ten minutes later wasn’t clean enough to trouble Trevor Carson.
Late in the game, the Tangerines finally started to turn the screw. Kevin Holt volleyed straight at Carson with quarter of an hour left. Dundee defender Ethan Ingram’s fabulous block kept out Ruari Paton before Carson tipped over a Declan Gallagher header from the resulting corner.
Carson saved again to thwart a vicious dipping volley from Will Ferry as time ran out for the visitors. Carson denied Sam Dalby late on too.
In stoppage time, Kristijan Trapanovski cut in and ripped a right-footed shot off the far post only for Carson to turn away Ševelj on the rebound. Glenn Middleton sent a volley just wide with five added minutes of stoppage time almost up.
Despite Dundee’s towering defensive effort it was surprising that this game ended with only one goal. The first half was played in the middle but the second had no shortage of opportunities.
The game simmered nicely but never boiled, not that Murray’s joy at full time was anything other than full-blooded. And why not? You have to enjoy your wins in this life and there’s no finer victory to celebrate than a derby.
The proximity of the two clubs is unusual but the Dundee derby could one day be played between housemates, not nextdoor neighbours. The same economic reality that will soon push Lyall Cameron to Glasgow makes two stadiums practically on top of one another a difficult situation to maintain.
With Dundee’s plans for a new stadium moving ahead at a snail’s pace, the long-standing debate about a shared facility is ongoing. Dark Blues chief executive indicated a potential willingness in the wake of their Scottish Cup win over United but there’s no reciprocation at Tannadice for the time being.
“There isn’t an appetite within the club or within our fanbase to do that. We actually took a vote in the AGM to see what the reaction was like and almost everyone said they’d stay at Tannadice,” said United chairman Mark Ogren.
The short walk will remain a fixture of the Scottish football calendar for some time yet.
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