With a 4-1 victory at Dens Park, Dundee overtook a struggling Motherwell team and moved into fifth place in the William Hill Premiership thanks to a goal from Lyall Cameron in the second half.
Apostolos Stamatelopoulos quickly cancelled off Oluwaseun Adewumi’s first goal for the home team, who was on loan from Burnley, tying the score at halftime.
However, the Steelmen collapsed halfway through the second half, giving up three goals in seven minutes, and lost for the third time in a row.
The Dundee team that began Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Kilmarnock saw two changes: Scott Tiffoney and 19-year-old Adewumi took the places of Fin Robertson and Seb Palmer-Houlden.
Stuart Kettlewell, the manager of Motherwell, made four changes to the team that began Saturday’s 3-0 loss to Hibernian at home. Steve Seddon, Harry Paton, Tony Watt, and Jair Tavares were brought in to replace Marvin Kaleta, Andy Halliday, Davor Zdravkovski, and Tawanda Maswanhise, who were all benched.
Lennon Miller threatened with two efforts from the edge of the box as the visitors got off to a strong start.
However, Dundee’s first significant assault came in the 15th minute when Tiffoney released Adwewumi on the left, who then glided into the area, cut past Kofi Balmer, and curled a beautiful angled finish beyond Aston Oxborough from just beyond the six-yard box.
It only took four minutes for Motherwell to level up. Mo Sylla tackled Paton, who may have been fouled, just inside the area after Tavares played a beautiful through ball into his path. Jon McCracken blocked Stamatelopoulos’s initial attempt after the loose ball broke well into his path, and he then pushed in the rebound from close range.
Near the end of the first half, the visitors had two chances to take the lead. Watt was denied by McCracken, and Seddon missed an angled shot in the final action before the intermission.
Early in the second session, Well seemed the more likely team as Paton fired over from 20 yards out before the same player slid a close-range effort agonisingly wide of the near post from a Watt cut-back.
However, once Dundee took the lead again at the hour, the Steelmen’s game abruptly began to fall apart.
Antonio Portales set up Tiffoney, who cut in from the left and curled a low shot beyond Oxborough from just within the box after a quick counterattack from a Well corner.
The visitors objected, arguing that as Balmer was lying hurt in the box, play ought to have been stopped earlier.
Cameron added to the home team’s lead three minutes later with a deflected shot from just outside the box.
After Simon Murray outmuscled Balmer on the left and cut the ball back into his path, the Scotland Under-21 midfielder scored again in the 67th minute, driving home from 15 yards out.
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