Dundee United moved to third in the Premiership with a golden late Sam Dalby strike to beat rivals Dundee.
Dalby has been on fire but passed up two early opportunities to hand United the initiative.
Dundee should have hit the front with Finlay Robertson was presented with a massive sight at goal from Seb Palmer-Houlden’s pull-back but Ryan Strain managed to get a brilliant block in.
It took a VAR intervention to find the first goal, referee Steven McLean eventually giving a penalty striking Kevin Holt’s arm. Former United striker Simon Murray tucked it away confidently against his old side.
It wasn’t long before scores were level though. A long throw from Ross Graham wasn’t properly dealt with and Palmer-Houlden headed it back towards his own goal, Vicko Sevelj ghosting in at the back post to nudge it over the line.
It looked to be heading for honours even until Dalby found the breakthrough with just three minutes to play. A brilliant ball from Will Ferry found Kevin Holt on the left and another perfect delivery allowed the league’s top scorer to stroke home and spark bedlam in the away end.
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Not your usual Dundee derby…until it was
City of Discovery clashes are quite often classics, end-to-end and with plenty of goals scored.
We’ve had 6-2s and the like over the years and even the first game this season gave us four goals with two apiece.
It was far from the case today in a more cagey affair. To be fair, both sides did manage to create but seemed nervy in and around the box and were unable to produce much quality to make things count.
It was no surprise that it took a penalty to break the deadlock, well taken by Murray in fairness. That did open things out and we ended up with three goals with the drama saved for the last part of the game.
Didn’t look like Dalby’s day…until it did
United loanee Dalby has been one of the top marksman in the division since joining from Wrexham, some of his nine strikes before today being big ones for the Tangerines.
He always gets chances and that was the case today but he didn’t quite seem to have that usual edge to his finishing to begin with.
His early header ended up being a comfortable save for Trevor Carson and with the opportunity he had shortly after, he snatched at it slightly.
But Dalby showed why he is the league’s top scorer by popping up when it counted to win the game.
United, incredibly, move to third
At one point, Aberdeen looked so far clear of the rest that the top three seemed a formality.
It’s Jim Goodwin’s side who now sit in third.
A lot of that is down the Dons falling apart but you have to also give plenty of credit to the Tannadice side. All season, they’ve fought and scrapped through the games, while also having quality, and digging out big results.
Chipping away at that Aberdeen lead is testament to that and the momentum is now very much with the Tangerines.