Dundee are not wallowing in self-pity because if they did, that would surely lead to them staying bottom of the table, says Tom Hateley.

The Dens Park outfit, who were left propping up the Ladbrokes Premiership after last weekend’s 2-0 defeat away to Hearts, hope to climb back up after today’s televised league clash with Tayside rivals St Johnstone.

Paul Hartley’s side haven’t won in the league since their 3-1 victory over Ross County on August 6, but Hateley, who joined them last month, maintains they aren’t going into their shells.

“It’s easy to start feeling sorry for yourself when things aren’t going your way,” he said. “But nobody here is being like that. You can’t do it because you find yourself starting to get further astray.

“The changing room is good, we’re working hard and everyone is positive. You need a wee bit of luck to change things and right now we’d take a scrappy 1-0 win to get us back to picking up three points again.

“But I am 100 per cent confident we will turn things around. We have gone from creating no chances to creating a few, so things are moving forward.

“Obviously you are judged on results, we know that, but I am totally confident things are going to start moving forward for us.”

Hateley joined Dundee following a spell with Polish side Slask Wroclaw and wasn’t expecting to be occupying bottom place.

But the former Motherwell man has been here before and is convinced his new team will get through these testing times.

“I have been through it before in Poland and in the end we had enough quality to come through it. I think we’re the same here,” Hateley said.

“Sometimes you have to change the way you play. We try to play the right way here, but maybe you need to tweak it.

“It might be a case of putting the ball into areas and pushing high up the pitch. We have worked a lot on our shape and being solid, then taking things from there.

“Quite possibly we could copy the example of Hearts, who beat us last week. We’ll take a goal from anywhere. We had some good chances against Hearts, but their goals were a cross and a header, and then at the end a simple pass down the line followed by a cut-back.

“That’s the kind of stuff they work on in training and obviously they’re then taking it on to the pitch, where it matters.”

Dundee struck the woodwork four times against the Tynecastle side but Hateley believes they will acquire a more ruthless touch in front of goal.

“There are goals in this team. I have no doubt about that,” he went on. “We have the players to score goals, up front and in midfield as well. It’s about finding the right formula to break the run we’re on.

“We have been doing finishing in training but when it’s little things like the width of a post you just have to keep at it.

“We have been trying to make sure the keeper works and if we keep creating things will fall into place for us.”