Kenny Miller not to blame for Dundee draw, insists boss Jim McIntyre

Posted Thursday, February 07, 2019 by PA

Dundee manager Jim McIntyre insisted Kenny Miller was not to blame for his stoppage-time penalty miss in a thrilling 2-2 draw at Dens Park.

Andy Nelson’s first-half brace looked all set to give Jim McIntyre’s side victory and boost their survival bid.

The big striker opened the scoring after eight minutes and added a second in the 20th minute after Conor McAleny had pulled one back for Steve Clarke’s fourth-placed side.

But Dundee’s hopes of climbing even further away from bottom-club St Mirren were dashed when former Rangers star Chris Burke stepped up to snatch a draw for Killie with a cracking 53rd-minute free-kick, before Miller late miss from the penalty spot.

McIntyre gave an honest assessment of his side’s efforts and Miller’s last-gasp spot-kick failure which could have given the second-bottom Dark Blues three huge points in their battle to stay up.

And McIntyre conceded it would not have been right had they triumphed right at the death through Miller, whose effort was saved by Daniel Bachmann.

“Kenny is gutted obviously,” McIntyre said. “But he’s scored a lot of important goals in my time here.

“Everybody has missed a penalty during their career.

“Yes, it was a great opportunity for us to win the game but if the truth be told we didn’t deserve to.

“Kilmarnock made a wee system change in the second half, which we struggled to deal with. Hence the reason we had to change the shape.

“I felt we just gave the ball away constantly in the second half. It was like a total opposite in halves in terms of possession.

“But you’ve got to give Killie credit. They’re a good side who’re used to winning games.

“How many times have they came back in games this season? They’ve done it a lot so it doesn’t faze them going behind.

“That comes from having a team who continue to do the right things, whereas we’re not at that stage yet.”

Kilmarnock boss Steve Clarke said: “It would have been an absolute travesty had we gone away from here without a point. We were much better in the second half overall.

“When you go into the last 15 minutes and the home side are looking to get a breather that tells you a lot.

“The disappointing thing for me was that we chased the game in a crazy fashion towards the end, hence giving away the penalty.

“But a point away from home against a team fighting for their lives is a decent point.”