Tony Docherty has held talks with Willie Collum and remains insistent that Mo Sylla should never have been red carded.
The Dundee manager was furious that referee Grant Irvine showed the Frenchman a second yellow card for his first half coming together with Matty Kennedy. The Dark Blues went 2-0 up, but ended up losing and Docherty pointed the finger of blame at that decision. Docherty confirmed he was going to be seeking words with referee chief Collum but refused to go public on those discussions.
Docherty confirmed: “We had a conversation but I’d rather keep that conversation to myself but certainly nothing has changed, I’m of the opinion it was a wrong decision. I need to be clear as a manager, I’ll deal with my team and the shortcomings we showed. There are reasons for that. Sometimes you do overload exercises in training, 10v11, but it’s only for 10 minutes – to do it for 60 minutes (with stoppage time) is tough on the players.
“Mentally there is a fatigue that sets in when you do that for so long and it contributed to the poor decision-making. But the reason we were in that position was really wrong and my team was very hard done by.”
The biggest disappointment is that there is no means of appealing Sylla’s sending off because it was for two yellow cards. The midfielder will now be suspended for the next game at Motherwell. He said: “It’s a second yellow card ,there’s no way of appealing it which is a bitter pill to swallow. I lose a player to suspension so it’s a double whammy.
“We lose the match and then lose an important player for the next match. Mo gives us so much on the pitch and he was great in the first half, the whole team was outstanding. But the first goal going in has a huge impact, we need to stop the bleeding but we don’t do that.
“Whether that’s fatigue but we 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.”
The international break will allow some of his walking wounds to get back to full fitness. Docherty explained: “Ziyad Larkeche has a wee issue with his foot which we’ll rest a little bit. Billy Koumetio has an issue with his groin.
“We are also hoping for some good news on Jordan McGhee, he’s making progress. I’ll wait until the physios tell me he’s available.
“I don’t want to put any pressure on him but, Jordan being Jordan, he is working so hard to be back into the fold. Jordan has great experience and mentality to thrive on which is so important. But when he’s out it’s up to others to step up.”