Dundee boss Jim McIntyre is bracing himself for a battle against Livingston on Saturday as the Lions look to end their slump in form.

After an impressive start to the season on their return to the Ladbrokes Premiership, the West Lothian outfit have lost five and drawn three of their last eight games in all competitions and have dropped into ninth place in the table.

Struggling Dundee, for their part, have won just once in 12 matches and sit second bottom, three points ahead of St Mirren.

Livingston won 4-0 at home against Dundee in October while the two sides fought out a goalless draw at Dens Park on Boxing Day and McIntyre, encouraged by draws in the last two matches against Hamilton and Kilmarnock, is expecting nothing less than another difficult afternoon.

He said: "It (victory) is very important and it is going to be a really tough game.

"Livingston have a fantastic home record, they have done fantastically well this season.

"We know we will have to win individual battles all over the pitch to give yourselves the opportunity to win the game.

"They have players who are very good in the final third and who can score goals. So we have to make sure we nullify that.

"But equally, we want to build on our performances, build on some really strong play in the last couple of matches and try to turn that into three points rather than one."

Hamilton sit three points ahead of Dundee and McIntyre remains fixed in his view that the fight between the bottom-three teams to avoid relegation is, "going to go right to the wire".

The former Ross County boss said: "We are in a three-team league.

"Nothing is going to change for those three teams, I just think there is too much of a gap now between the fourth-bottom team and the bottom three.

"We just need to look at the next game which is Livingston and then move on.

"The full focus is on Livingston and to try to get the three points and hopefully the other results go our way."