If the Dundee supporters who were subjected to the horror of watching their supine team capitulate to Aberdeen on their own patch on Friday night were looking for their men to at least show a bit of fight, they weren’t alone. At least one of their number in the dark blue on the field could scarcely believe the lack of heart he was seeing either.

Darren O’Dea shuffled into the press room with his head bowed, but fair play to him for facing the music when the easiest thing in the world to do would have been to go into hiding after being part of a woeful defensive unit that had just shipped seven goals and were lucky to get away without losing one or two more.

That isn’t the former Celtic man’s style though, and his assessment of the calamitous evening he had just been party to would probably chime well with those who watched huddled in shock from the banks of the south enclosure.

O’Dea eviscerated the Dundee players, himself included, and you have the feeling that he may not be signing up for the traditional end of season party any time soon.

"I wouldn't want to be on a night out with that team and a fight to break out,” O’Dea said. "If anything kicked off I wouldn't want to be there.

"You look around and you look for a bit of fight and people rolling up their sleeves. Even at 4-0 down you have to show it, but there was none.

"And that's collectively, there was nothing. I'm bringing myself into that too, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone.

"I can't think of another game where I have looked around a pitch and thought 'we are dead, we're finished here'. You just want off the pitch, it's damage limitation and we didn't even manage to do that well.

"It's hard to analyse anything right now because it was just embarrassing for that to happen at home and on live TV. But to be honest, if that was a Sunday league game it would feel just as embarrassing.

"There's no point in pointing fingers, collectively it was everyone - you don't lose 7-0 if only two or three are off it. It was weak and that's a night we'll all remember for years to come.

"We folded, that's what happened. When you lose a game like that it's not your ability that is in question it's your character.

"That for me is unacceptable, if your character is being questioned then it's an embarrassment. I hope everyone had sleepless nights after that.”

Dundee at least have a chance of swift redemption, as a now vital match with Ross County tomorrow night looms on the horizon. For O’Dea, even their Premiership status could now rest on showing the requisite testicular fortitude to get over the shock of such an appalling display.

"Results like that can knock the stuffing out of the team if you're weak,” he said.

"What you have to do is show you have balls, do you have balls big enough to come back from it? We'll find out on Tuesday up at Ross County who has the balls to fight back. We'll see how big people's balls are. It was weak, and hiding is the right word.

"It's a test of character now, I like that. I don't like that it has to be tested but that's the way it's going to be. We have to stand up or lie down. I would have loved to have played on Saturday.

"If you want to lie down you wouldn't want another game, but for me I want to go again.

"It won't get any easier, we have Ross County then Hearts so we've got a tough few games coming up. They're all tough though and we have to be much, much better.”

By stark contrast, Aberdeen’s unlikely hat-trick hero on the night, left-back Andy Considine, bounded into the room with the match ball safely tucked away on what was the eve of his thirtieth birthday.

In typically selfless style though, the main thing on his mind was the prospect of his team sewing up the runners-up spot in the league, which looks increasingly likely after Rangers dropped points at home to Motherwell on Saturday to remain 10 points adrift in third.

That came after the Ibrox manager Pedro Caixinha, who was at Dens Park to witness Aberdeen’s phenomenal dismantling of the hosts, had tried to pile pressure on Derek McInnes’s side last week, to little avail, it would seem.

“The main thing is that we are only concerned about ourselves,” Considine said. “We know they are chasing us but all we need to do is to concentrate on Inverness on Tuesday night. We just need to get our heads screwed on for that one and to get the result we need.

“I’d like to think [Pedro Caixinha] would have gone away thinking we are a very good team. I’m sure he feel we will give them a tough test when we have to play them on Sunday but the main thing is we need to concentrate on ourselves.

“It doesn’t matter what they are saying. We just need to go into Tuesday night and the rest of our games and do the job we need to do. If we can keep up the form it is there for us.”