If it is a mark of a manager to maintain the respect of senior players who are not featuring regularly in his plans then the evidence provided by the man he appointed club captain this week suggests Neil McCann is on top of his job in his first full season in charge at Dens Park.
A combination of injuries and suspensions have contributed to him featuring less frequently than might have been expected, but Darren O’Dea is also being made to fight for his place in the team and he acknowledged that it is down to him to prove his worth to his manager.
“I’ve obviously played this year and picked up a couple of red cards and the two lads that came in have done great, so I was frustrated, but I wasn’t confused about why I wasn’t in the team, so I just worked as hard as I can,” he said after coming off the bench during his side’s 2-0 defeat to Celtic at Dens park on Boxing Day.
“That’s one game and if I get another opportunity it’s up to me to try to keep the jersey, but we’ve got good competition in that place.”
He is particularly aware of the need to improve on his disciplinary record, given the impact on the team during matches and in terms of limiting the opportunity to generate consistency of selection. However, having turned 30 earlier this year, he believes he has addressed the underlying issue, which was to ensure that he can maintain his sharpness throughout matches.
“The red cards were simple for me, I’ve picked up a couple of injuries early on in the season and naturally now I probably don’t recover as quickly,” he observed.
“For instance last year I missed a month and I thought I came back and instantly I was match fit, but this year I’ve picked up the two yellow cards late on in games when fatigued. There’s only one thing for that which is hard work, so when I’ve been out of the team I’ve done as much work as possible so that when I get my opportunity I’m as fit as possible.
“This was one game for me. Hopefully I get another chance and if I do I’d like to think I’ll get stronger.”
That may depend on how Josh Meekings recovers from the injury that ended his participation in the clash with Celtic, albeit he was able to walk off the pitch unlike Jonny Hayes, the other player involved in a full-blooded collision, but O’Dea said that whoever is selected for Saturday’s short trip along the Tay to meet St Johnstone in Perth will have to do better.
In particular, he reckoned they cannot show teams the sort of respect they offered the champions.
“It was a disappointing result,” he said of the defeat to Celtic.
“We were just slightly off the gameplan that we had. If you’re in between at times Celtic will punish you, so the word I’d use is that we were a little bit apprehensive at times when it came to the full commitment to go and either press people or attack people, which is not like us, but we need to learn from it.
“We’re not happy about it but we’ve another big game coming up on Saturday so we’ll need to dust ourselves down and get on with it. We’ve a really good manager who pushes us all the time and as players we’re all in agreement that this performance wasn’t good enough.”
His past experience of visits to McDiarmid Park may also prove valuable in terms of ensuring that Dundee set about their business the way they need to.
“In my time here we’ve not been great up there, so it’ll be a very tough game,” said O’Dea.
“St Johnstone are a good side, well drilled, good players, so we’ll need to be at our very best and certainly better than against Celtic.”
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