Dundee 2 - 0 Falkirk: Dee-licious and timely

Published on Saturday 28 August 2010 12:06

The pressure on Dundee manager Gordon Chisholm following embarrassing cup exits to Stenhousemuir and Brechin City eased with this well-merited victory, which saw the Dark Blues leapfrog yesterday's opponents.

Falkirk were never at the races, even although Dundee played for the last 36 minutes with just ten men following the dismissal of goalkeeper Rab Douglas.

"That was probably the best performance from us since I took over here," said Chisholm. "We played some really good stuff with 11 men, although it became more difficult for us after Rab went off.

"I brought David Witteveen in on loan from Hearts because we needed a big guy up front. He has a physical presence but he's also a very good player.

"We needed a response from the players after losing at Brechin and they reacted in the right way. We looked more like ourselves out there."

Striker David Witteveen, signed on loan from Hearts on Friday, was a constant nuisance to the Bairns' defence and his presence played a part in the opener.

The visiting defenders seemed pre-occupied by the Austrian, allowing a cross ball to travel across their penalty area to Gary Harkins. He played it into the path of Stephen O'Donnell and he drilled the ball home from nine yards.

Manager Steven Pressley must have been desperate to get his under-achievers into the sanctuary of the dressing room but Falkirk fell further behind on the stroke of half-time when Nicky Riley nodded home at the far post after being picked out by a superb delivery from Leigh Griffiths.

Pressley threw on Kallum Higginbotham and Carl Finnigan for the ineffective Jack Compton and Mark Stewart and the change paid dividends.

Finnigan forced Douglas into his first save in the 50th minute and four minutes later he beat the former Celtic and Scotland star to Mark Millar's through ball and was brought down as he burst past him 25 yards from goal.

Referee Willie Collum had no hesitation in producing the red card from his pocket and Douglas really could have had no argument with the decision.

However, Pressley intends to complain to the Scottish Football League about what he believed to be excessive time-wasting which went unpunished yesterday by the match official.

"It seems to me that people just ignore the six-second rule," he said. "I thought that the referee allowed their replacement goalkeeper to keep the ball in his hands for long periods of time.

"On top of that, I wasn't satisfied with the amount of time that was added on at the end of the match.I'm not saying that's why we lost but I'll be sending the DVD of the game to the SFL with my comments.

"I spoke to the referee afterwards but I didn't get a satisfactory reply from him - in fact, I was chased out of his room!"