James McPake reckons Paul McMullan is one of his most important signings for Dundee.

The former Dundee United winger had been taken off after 38 minutes in the 5-0 loss to Ross County on Wednesday night.

But he put that dent to his pride behind him as he helped Dundee win 1-0 at St Mirren on Saturday thanks to Max Anderson’s early strike.

And McPake felt that players like McMullan and Paul McGowan were key to his team’s first away league win of the season.

He said: “Paul McMullan deserves a real mention. He came off on 38 minutes the other night and we’ve all seen players who could chuck it and say ‘nah, stuff you’.

“But he showed why he’s one of the most important signings we’ve made.

“He was outstanding, working his way back defensively but carrying the ball forward up the pitch when we were under pressure.

“All credit to him. Gowser coming in, never lets the club down, you need that. Call it a mini crisis but I don’t think you can explain 0-5 to Ross County.

“When you’re in the trenches then those types of people – Paul McGowan, Cammy Kerr, Charlie Adam, people like that are the type you need on the pitch, they were excellent to a man.

“We won the game, the right team was picked, the right shape was picked. We carried out the game plan as we hoped.

“All credit to the group. We had 14 players including three subs and four unused subs who were great team-mates. We needed that as a group and they came through for the football club.”

St Mirren manager Jim Goodwin was frustrated at the way his team conceded the only goal of the game after 11 minutes from their own attack.

He said: “We conceded a really poor goal from our corner. We know Dundee are dangerous on the break and it was a decent strike from the kid.

“But we shouldn’t be conceding from a corner like that. Once they get in front they make it very difficult and we couldn’t break them down.

“They got six or eight behind the ball and we didn’t create enough clear-cut chances. We could still be playing now and we’d still be finding it hard to put the ball in the net. We need to dust ourselves down and go again.”