Dundee boss Barry Smith believes he has discovered two natural born leaders in Colin Nish and Mark Kerr.
The Dark Blues manager was disappointed that his side failed to take anything from the weekend’s game with league leaders Motherwell but is taking plenty of positives from the defeat, notably the performance of new boys Nish, who scored Dundee’s goal, and Kerr, who made an impressive debut at the heart of midfield.
Smith reckons the pair have added a wealth of experience to the dressing room at Dens Park and is delighted with the influence they have already had on the players.
”Nish has been a breath of fresh air about the place, not just on the pitch but he’s a professional off the pitch as well,” Smith said.
”He’s good in the dressing room, whether it’s with the young players or the experienced ones, and he’s one that will be a big addition for us.
”Kerr is the same. Kerrso’s got loads of experience, he knows how to get the best out of the players on the pitch. He’s got standards and he’ll try and get everybody’s standards up.
”We have got standards here but, if you’ve got somebody who will maybe raise the bar a wee bit higher, you are on to a good thing.
”I thought Kerr did very well on his debut for not having played for a couple of weeks.”
Smith remained upbeat about the Motherwell game and is happy to have pushed the SPL’s pace-setters so close with a squad still decimated by injuries.
He continued: ”Against the top of the league team, I thought we did exceptionally well for long spells of the game. They are a good team and I think we handled them relatively well.
”Obviously I’m not happy with the goals we lost but I don’t think we’re far away from cutting out these mistakes. We kept the ball, we passed it about, created a couple of openings and defended well.”
There was better news on the injury front for Dundee as Nicky Riley, Kevin McBride and Jamie McCluskey all resumed training, although Smith admitted his side missed the presence of Davide Grassi at the back on Saturday.
The Italian suffered cartilage damage in his knee and could be out for four to six weeks.