Why Dundee season is turning into my very own runaway barbecued pig

There's a famous scene from The Simpsons where Homer desperately attempts to salvage a runaway barbecued pig to more and more extreme lengths, repeatedly uttering "it's still good!", even as it ends up shot through the air and over the horizon. Our hopes of making the top six risk becoming my very own runaway barbecued pig.

Our fate has - for now - been wrenched out of our own hands following yet another last-minute heartbreak, as we watched two points vanish into thin air against 10-man Kilmarnock. Combined with the self-inflicted goal-difference obliteration witnessed at Parkhead days before, it has not exactly been a red-letter week for Dundee. We now need Hibs to drop points over the course of the next five games - at least four, given we have Rangers still to play - to regain our berth in the top half of the table. It's far from impossible, but also far from ideal.

As has been a common theme in this column for weeks now, it's important to keep this season in perspective. After all, if you'd told me this time last season, when I was frantically trying to work out how we could reel in Queen's Park, that we'd be comfortably mid table and still in with a distant shout of European football, I'd have advised you to speak to a medical professional. However, improvements can only be made if problems are accurately diagnosed, and in that spirit, there is one area where we've spectacularly regressed of late - defence.

Once teams called Ross County are removed from the equation, we've not kept a clean sheet since November. We now have the leakiest back line in the league, conceding more goals than Livingston, for crying out loud. The six first-half goals gifted to Celtic seemed to suggest that the Parkhead disco lights made our defence forget that it's within the rules to header the ball clear when it's floated into the box. The disruption across the back line - Owen Beck's temporary sojourn back home, Trevor Carson's ongoing niggle, the return of Ricki Lamie and Antonio Portales to full fitness - has been palpable and notable, as has a dip in form from captain Joe Shaughnessy, who had been tremendous for so long but has unfortunately suffered a wobble that coincides with too many others.

The goals handed to Kilmarnock are a case in point, with neither being wholly attributable to one player but collectively to a defence that cannot clear its lines just now. Set pieces for the opposition will always be a threat, but we've flipped from being one of the very last clubs in the top tier to concede from a set piece to doing it once, perhaps even twice, every single game. It's put a lot of pressure on our forward players to keep us in the race in individual fixtures, and thankfully they've done what they can lately to do just that.

One such player continuing to display good form is the Fintry Foden himself, Luke McCowan. Our peroxide playmaker started at right wing-back in Jordan McGhee's absence on Saturday, but he was truly unshackled once he could move into the middle of the park in the second half. His influence on games right now is unreal, particularly when he's given free reign in centre midfield to dictate proceedings, and his public enthusiasm for signing a new deal at Dens should be taken full advantage of before he comes to his senses. The vast majority of the squad have signed deals for this season and next, but once you remove those who are already out of favour or seem to not be up to the weekly rigours of the Premiership, more than a few gaps are apparent. Assuming no loanees return to Dens - are you sure we can't convince you, Owen? - then we're looking at new faces right across the back line and two strikers, which isn't the worst shopping list in the world, but is hardly minor tweaking, either.

Securing top-tier football next season at as early a juncture as possible will allow Tony Docherty to make progress on these transfer targets, as well as strategically extending existing deals of assets like McCowan and Lyall Cameron who will no doubt be attracting some attention from the Edinburgh clubs and down south. It's still far too early to either make assumptions about our league status, or indeed to give up on this season being notable for more than mere survival, but it's never too early to plan ahead and steal a march on other sides in the division.