Dundee manager Jim McIntyre dismissed the significance of his side moving out of the bottom two of the Ladbrokes Premiership after winning 2-1 away to Livingston on Saturday.
Second-half goals from Andy Nelson and Scott Wright, after Craig Halkett had put the home side in front, lifted Dundee above Hamilton Accies and into tenth place in the table on goal difference. The result also gives them a five-point cushion over bottom side St Mirren who drew 2-2 away to Aberdeen.
McIntyre, though, felt league placing was irrelevant at this stage of the season with 12 games still to play, starting with a home match against Hibernian on Friday.
He said: “It’s nice to be out of the bottom two but it doesn’t matter now. All that matters is that we’re out of the bottom two in May. There are going to be ups and downs, I’ve said that before.
“The three teams at the bottom of the table are all battling. You look at St Mirren going up to Aberdeen and picking up a point.
“For us it’s great for confidence but you can be back in the bottom two next week. Until you start to put a run of victories together then you have to concentrate on the next game.”
McIntyre revealed goalscorer Nelson almost missed the game due to injury. The manager added: “Neller hasn’t trained all week. He took a bang on the shin and it went into his calf. So he was a major doubt for the game as he hadn’t trained until the Friday. But he played and I thought his finish was excellent. I’m really pleased with his contribution.”
Meanwhile, Livingston manager Gary Holt insisted his players would never dive after Steven Lawless was denied a late penalty and booked for simulation.
Holt said: “I don’t tell my players to go down and I don’t think any of them have ever dived. It wasn’t simulation. The boy went clean through him because he’d given the ball away and tried to rectify it by lunging in. And if we’d scored it would have given us something to hang onto.
“If you have a chance to go 2-1 up then it deflates Dundee because they’d thrown everything at us and weren’t really troubling us. Our referees are a good standard but on this occasion they got the big decision wrong at the wrong time for us.”
