Steven Pressley hails Dundee bravery after first Premiership win of season

Steven Pressley hailed his team’s courage after Dundee secured their first Premiership win of the season with a dramatic 3-2 win over Livingston.

The Dark Blues had established a two-goal lead thanks to strikes by Simon Murray and Joe Westley but Livingston pulled one back following a Clark Robertson own goal before Jeremy Bokila scored a penalty to draw them level.

Deep in stoppage time, David Martindale’s men had a great chance to snatch the win but were denied with Dundee breaking up the pitch and being awarded a spot-kick of their own after Livi skipper Danny Wilson tripped Charlie Reilly inside the box.

Dark Blues sub Callum Jones calmly fired home the penalty to spark wild scenes of celebration on and off the pitch.

And Dundee head coach Pressley admitted he was incredibly proud of the bravery shown by his players.

The former Scotland defender said: “I thought for 70 minutes we did reasonably well. We showed much more attacking intent.

“We carried out what we’d worked towards reasonably well. We were quite effective on the transitions.

“And we looked like a team capable of scoring, which was pleasing.

“But the changes that we made, we were affected in the last 20 minutes and we really lost our way.

“I spoke to the team before the game and one of the words I used was showing real courage.

“I want us to play more, I want us to trust ourselves more and I thought we saw that in the game.

“At times we showed much more belief in possession.

“We showed amazing courage to go from 2-0 up to 2-2 and then win the game.”

Pressley was also delighted for Reilly who has endured an injury-blighted time at Dundee and was just making his latest comeback after dislocating his shoulder in June.

The head coach said: “I was really pleased for Charlie Reilly.

“Charlie’s had a really difficult time since coming here. He’s been affected by a lot of injuries. He’s worked exceptionally hard and in that last five to 10 minutes, he really impacted the game.

“I’m pleased we won, which is the most important thing.”

Livi boss Martindale was understandably fuming over Dundee’s stoppage-time penalty but he also praised his players for the way they had battled back from 2-0 down.

The manager said: “It was a half decent game of football for the neutral with four legal goals out of the five.

“We only have ourselves to blame for falling 2-0 behind.

“We didn’t look after the ball properly and didn’t play with enough purpose.

“There were individual errors within that but we take collective responsibility and the boys were magnificent to get back into the game.”