There has been no tactical revolution behind the scenes at Dundee since Mark McGhee and Simon Rusk took over in February.
Any notions of ‘Rusk-ball’ as their approach was dubbed at Stockport County are wide of the mark.
Their arrival is yet to yield results with only three points picked up from 21 available.
Because of that poor form and the number of matches running out, manager McGhee says there has been no time to start from scratch as they head into the final six matches of the season.
Instead, the experienced boss has put in the work to keep spirits up at Dens Park, to make sure the players continue to have confidence they can still get out of trouble.
‘Major mission’
And to instil belief they can beat arch rivals Dundee United on their own patch this weekend.
“We have not come here and revolutionised it,” McGhee said of his seven weeks in charge alongside assistant Rusk.
“We have a limited number of players, we have had injuries and Covid so we have had to work with what we have.
“What we have tried to do is freshen up the ideas they are going out there with.
“We are trying to give them all the information we can without overloading them, trying to give them solutions to stopping and hurting the opposition.
“I have no idea really how the previous management worked. We can only do what we know.
“I feel that the most important thing I have done since I’ve been here is that regardless of any disappointment with results, we have managed to keep them up and going into the next game still believing we can win.
“That has been my major mission in a sense since I have been here to keep them up until we do win again.
“Then the momentum of that will hopefully take them to the next game.
“I think that’s the most important thing I have done aside from what way they play or any fancy tactics.
“It is just about maintaining morale.”
Impetus
And McGhee says the morale among the squad will sky-rocket if they can get the better of United at Tannadice this weekend.
It has been a long time since that happened – 2004 the last time a Dundee side won across the road.
But defeat would leave Dundee at least six points adrift going into the matches after the split and without a win in eight.
So victory would be timely for McGhee and his men.
“If we win any game it would give us impetus – win a derby and it will be fantastic,” the Dens boss said.
“More important is going into the last five games already having taken that step and not waiting for that first win since we’ve been here.
“There are all sorts of implications going there rather than just points.
“We just need to keep going, deal with what we can deal with and not worry about others too much.
“It is a difficult game on Saturday.”
