A first league win in two months, a period encompassing eight matches, and only their second at home this season provided relief for the home side and their supporters at Dens Park after a difficult festive period, but for last season's Premiership runners-up 2015 has begun in ominous fashion.
Paul Hartley, the Dundee manager, who got a reward for his transfer dealings in acquiring Alex Harris on loan from Hibs last week, was full of praise for the way his men had reacted to adversity, but they were given plenty of help from their visitors.
"We told the players that we had to take the game to Motherwell. I thought we did that and young Alex Harris played a big part in our result today," he said. "We scored some good goals and, to be honest, I was disappointed we didn't score more."
They were given the start they needed when Harris cut infield from the right and struck a left-footed shot from 22 yards out that Dan Twardzik probably had covered until it struck Stephen McManus, and, having shifted all his weight to his right foot, the goalkeeper watched it fly past him to his left.
That was just three minutes in and soon afterwards David Clarkson's deft back header put Greg Stewart in behind the Motherwell defence and while Twardzik did superbly to deflect his initial effort on to the ball Stewart kept his head and used it to steer the rebounding ball back into the goal from 10 yards out.
Even then the home support seemed tense, which perhaps transmitted itself to the players as they allowed the visitors back into the match when John Sutton got across Iain Davidson at the near post to steer home Josh Law's cross from the right.
Dundee were living dangerously until a dreadful blunder by Twardzik allowed them to re-establish their two-goal advantage. He got both hands to a corner from the right, only to drop it into the path of Gary Irvine who rammed it high into the net. While Dundee had thrown away a lead against the 10 men of Ross County a week earlier, that cushion looked more than sufficient when Henrik Ojamaa was shown a straight red card for seeming to elbow Kevin Thomson.
So it felt only a matter of how many Dundee could extend their advantage by after the break, but they were unable to do so due to injuries forcing them to make three changes at once early in the second half.
Admittedly, they did ultimately extend their advantage, an addition that was entirely down to another horrible error at the back.
Substitute Luka Tankulic's shot prompted a collision between Mark O'Brien and Twardzik, and before they could do anything it was 4-1 to the hosts.
Having seen his side win his first two games in charge Ian Baraclough has now seen them lose three in succession, conceding 11 goals along the way. Noting that some 16 or 17 of his squad will soon be out of contract, he issued a stark warning about their work ethic.
"You can't win games of football unless you're willing to put the hard work in," he said. "That should be the bare minimum and you've got to drag that out of everybody, not just me because it's livelihoods at stake."
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