Dundee boss Neil McCann insists he does not feel under pressure from the club’s American owners despite the Dark Blues’ poor start to the season.
The manager and his players will travel to face Rangers at Ibrox today sitting rock bottom of the Premiership table with no points to their name having lost their last five matches in a row.
McCann is the first to admit that is simply not good enough but he still retains faith in himself and the team that results will turn.
And the 44-year-old believes that feeling is shared by the man he works with on a daily basis at Dens, managing director John Nelms.
McCann said: “I’ve got a great relationship with John. I am very mindful of the fact that we’ve not been getting results. We started very similarly last year, in terms of results and fixtures.
“My relationship with John is brilliant and we speak all the time.
“I don’t feel any pressure from John. I work under my own pressure, because I set myself high standards. I work hard and my team works equally as hard. We are all trying to get the results that we are striving for.
“I’m not frightened of pressure. I came into this job under an enormous amount of pressure to take it.
“I then had a certain amount of pressure to take it permanently. I’m not frightened of where we are in the table. All we can do is keep working hard.
“I still love my job.”
When asked if he had spoken to Nelms to ask for reassurances that he and owner Tim Keyes still believed the manager was on the right track, McCann said: “I haven’t had any of those conversations at all.
“I haven’t gone looking for it and it hasn’t been given so as far as I am concerned, it is a non-event just now.
“John knows how hard I work here and how hard we are trying to get results.
“The frustration element comes when it doesn’t happen when the 11 take the pitch on a Saturday.
“I can only do my job and the boys can only do there’s.
“We are working and trying so hard to turn it around.”
McCann acknowledged that football management was an unforgiving environment but it is a job that consumes him entirely.
He said: “Every manager will feel different levels of pressure.
“It is all relative. If you are working at the top of the game with multi-millions to spend, that brings its own pressures.
“Where we are working it is the same pressure. At the end of the day, it is your job to get results for your football club.
“Your job carries the responsibility of all the fans who want the same outcome – winning football.
“The pressure I live with is something I was aware of I was walking into.
“I didn’t come in here and think, ‘This is more pressure’. It is always the same pressure and I have to find a way that gets us to win a game.
“It clearly has an impact on your home life because you have to work every minute.
“Your life is consumed – and it should be consumed as a footballer – to do your very best.
“It consumes your whole life this job. It consumes your whole week and when you have worked hard all week and you get a negative result, it affects you.
“But that’s just the life – we are all winners. I would like think that every manager and player is a winner so we all take defeat badly.
“I don’t think you should take a defeat lightly.
“Maybe you can pore over it and see where you went wrong but a defeat doesn’t sit well with me.
“That’s when you go home on a Saturday night and it does beat you up. The first thing I want to do is to go back and watch the game which can put paid to some plans you may have pencilled in for that weekend.”
McCann added: “There’s no getting away from it and you just have to find a release the best you can.
“Everybody has a family at home but I just go and watch football.
“I am not a good golfer as I am too angry to play golf.
“I want to win everything I do and when I have been beaten at that there have been a few clubs needing repaired.
“My handicap has gone through the roof (since becoming manager) although I have not had many games.
“I still put (assistant boss Graham) Gartland to the sword the other week though!”
Dundee will face a Rangers side still reeling from their defeat to Celtic before the international break with their manager Steven Gerrard saying: “The players should be bottling the hurt of that result in that fixture and go take it out on Dundee.”
However, McCann insists his side can upset the odds.
He said: “I have a good group here and I see enough in training every day that reinforces they can go to Ibrox and get a result.
“It is going to be hard, of course it is, but I have seen enough in the team and the players we have added that if we get it absolutely spot on, we can get a result.”
Roarie Deacon will miss out through injury while Glen Kamara is rated doubtful.
