Dundee frontman Rory Loy is poised to return to the team at Tannadice tonight.
The Dark Blues’ summer signing from Falkirk made a stellar start to his Dens career by scoring twice in the 4-0 hammering of Kilmarnock on the opening day of the season.
However, a groin strain saw him sit out Saturday’s home loss to Hearts and manager Paul Hartley admits he was missed.
The good news, though, is that Loy is fit and ready to face Dundee United this evening.
“I think Rory is going to be OK,” said Hartley.
“He trained this morning, as did Nicky Low.
“I felt Rory was a big miss in the second half on Saturday.
“I thought we were excellent in the first half but in the second we didn’t get up the park enough.
“Rory wanted to play against Hearts after scoring those goals against Kilmarnock had given him confidence.
“But we said to him that it’s a long season and you don’t want to take too many risks.
“You need to make sure you are OK for all the games coming up.”
It is no secret that the Dark Blues would love to finish above rivals United this season but, as far as Hartley is concerned, that is one for the future.
As for the present, he would just like to see his side play as they did at Dens on April 8 when they comfortably beat the Tangerines 3-1.
The Dundee boss said: “We’ll see what happens at the end of the season.
“We are just looking at the next game and it is a big one for us.
“Last season, I felt we didn’t have our strongest team for some of the derbies.
“We were probably at our strongest for the game here when we won it.
“You feel the defeats because of who they are against your rivals across the road.
“That makes them hard to take but when we won here it was great.
“We want to experience that again but we are facing a good Dundee United team that’s for sure.
“We played well for spells in those games but overall we weren’t consistent enough so we have to make sure we learn from that.
“It is a new group of players and they haven’t experienced it yet.
“We are looking forward to it.
“Dundee is a footballing city and we want both of the teams to do well.
“It is great that we are on live TV and we want to put on a show so people can see we have good players in the city.”