Watch best of action as Dundee beat Motherwell

Thomas Duncan
BBC Sport Scotland

Dundee earned a first Scottish Premiership win in six matches as a polished performance defeated in-form Motherwell at Fir Park.

The decisive, and only, goal came in the first half when Lyall Cameron slid the ball into the bottom corner after Simon Murray's header was blocked by Ewan Wilson.

Tony Docherty's side had been forced to stew on a 3-2 defeat by Kilmarnock a fortnight ago, when they conceded three times in the final eight minutes, but they showed improvement at the back to see out this match.

They had opportunities overall to make their victory more comfortable, with Billy Koumetio heading a first-half chance wide, and Curtis Main and Simon Murray failing to find the target from similar positions inside the box.

Motherwell had won five of their last six matches in all competitions but struggled to hit their recent standards.

Striker Apostolos Stamatelopoulos headed wide with the game goalless and also fired over on the stretch before disappearing down the tunnel, presumably with an injury, right on half time.

The home side ended the game with four attackers up top and one of them, Jair Tavares, ended up spooning their best chance over the bar.

Dundee jump into sixth with this victory, just their second in the league this season, while Motherwell are fifth as their run of three straight wins in all competitions is halted.

Dundee shore up leaky defence

After the late collapse in their last game against Kilmarnock, Dundee really needed this win and clean sheet, their first in the Premiership this term.

They had won only once in their last 15 league games stretching back to last season, and some promising performances have been undone by poor defending.

By the end Motherwell had gone 4-2-4 and threw the kitchen sink at them, as Killie had done two weeks ago.

They rained in crosses and tested the Dundee defence late on but Clark Robertson, Koumetio, Ryan Astley and substitute Antonio Portales stood firm.

Goalkeeper Trevor Carson also made a good stop to deny Miller having ben recalled to the starting XI.

Up the other end Cameron again showed what a wonderful player and unerring finisher he is. Docherty will hope to build on this.

Motherwell struggle to replicate form

Motherwell have been excellent in recent weeks but their intensity was notably lower here.

Miller, their standout player, looked tired after travelling back from Kazakhstan, where he starred for Scotland under-21s.

The absence of captain Paul McGinn's calm authority and ability to play progressive passes was keenly felt, as Motherwell went too direct.

His absence for the foreseeable future with a thigh issue will be a concern.

Kettlewell's disgruntlement was clear as he changed Stamatelopoulos and Zach Robinson for Tony Watt and Moses Ebiye at half-time, before swiftly adding winger Tawanda Maswanhise and Tavares to go with four attackers.

But they managed just three shots on target and fashioned few chances. Kettlewell will hope it is a one off after an encouraging start to the season.

What they said

Motherwell manager Stuart Kettlewell: "Overall we end up changing the plan two or three times today because we didn't execute the first one well enough. We didn't do the second one either.

"We got to stage three and we had a little bit more of a threat and Dundee were hemmed in. We had one or two opportunities but nothing too clear cut."

Dundee manager Tony Docherty: "We did a hell of a lot of work as a group, particularly on keeping clean sheets, and we got our rewards for that.

"I thought we won the game in the first half. It's a fantastic goal, but technically I thought our play was excellent.

"In the second half we showed the other side and dug in. To win a match like that I thought we displayed everything as a team."

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