MORTON boss Dougie Imrie has challenged his players to show their mettle and keep their play-off hopes alive ahead of tomorrow's clash against Dundee.

Ton travel to Dens Park needing points to close the gap on fourth place but face a difficult task against the new league leaders.

Imrie wants his side to secure a fourth clean sheet against the Dark Blues this season and give themselves the best possible chance of making the frame.

They will be boosted by the return of Cameron Blues from injury and George Oakley following a suspension.

He told the Tele: “We’ve not got the points we deserved out of games that we’ve done well in in the last few weeks so to get that win in midweek over Hamilton was huge for us.

“We’ve now got another tough game coming up against Dundee, a team fighting for the title at home, but this season we’ve been relatively successful against them - hopefully we can bring a positive result down the road.

“We got a clean sheet the last time we played them, and we’re coming into the game off the back of a clean sheet too.

“They give you the best chance of winning games."

Imrie declared himself delighted with Tuesday night's win over Accies and hopes it will breed confidence in the camp.

He said: "I thought that to a man we were excellent on Tuesday, so it’s up to us to carry that on.

“We always want to try and bring progression to the club and we have done that this season but you always want more. The players want more and hopefully the fans want that too and I think they do.

“I just hope that we can keep sticking together and building because there’s going to be ups and downs.

"You just need to look at the whole league through the course of the season to see that. But we want to keep pushing and we’ve now got four games to do that.

“I’ll keep pushing them to keep on getting results that will hopefully get them to where I think that they should be and where we deserve to be for the efforts that they’ve put in."

Imrie admits that now is the time that the real contenders will be sorted out from the also-rans.

He told the Tele: “Now we’re right in the thick of the crunch period. This is when the pressure starts to mount irrelevant of whether you’re at the top or bottom of the league.

“This is when you find people’s characters - if they can handle that pressure of having to win games when it matters most."

But Imrie is adamant that come what may he’ll be proud of his players and their progress this season.

He said: “I’m as proud as I can be of the players, they’ve been terrific this season considering where we were in the summer and all the stuff that was going on around the club at that time.

“I think they’ve handled it really well and as time’s gone on, they’ve got stronger and stronger.

“It’s now about pressure and time will tell if they can handle that but whatever happens between now and the end of the season I’ll be proud of them."