'Beating Hearts would be statement of intent'

Attention turns to the home game with Hearts after our trip to Celtic Park last weekend was postponed.

Despite having started the season so poorly, Hearts are level on points with us. They're a very hot-and-cold outfit this season but have won four out of five games this month.

Our last encounter with them, at Tynecastle in early December, was one-sided. The 'real Hearts' - the one that would be expected to fight for third place - showed up that day and beat us comfortably.

The space between fifth and ninth just now is ridiculously tight - just four points - so beating Hearts would be a real six-pointer and a statement of intent that Dundee are getting better with each passing game.

Teams above like Motherwell and Aberdeen have gone off the boil, leaving us the perfect chance to capitalise and climb the table.

We are still the league's third top scoring team, behind Celtic and Rangers, and appear to look much more defensively astute compared to earlier in the season.

We deserved our clean sheet against Dundee United, it was a long time coming and if we can keep that hole patched for the fixtures in February then this could prove to be a very productive month for Dundee.