After watching Gary Harkins orchestrate Dundee’s defeat of Dumbarton at Dens Park last night Paul Hartley backed the play-maker to cope with whatever is thrown at him in the Scottish Cup quarter-final at Ibrox next week.
The current team captain set Dundee on their way to last night’s 5-0 fifth round replay win by setting up the first two goals for Paul McGinn and Kane Hemmings and he has teed up the next tie with his weekend reference to the prospect of facing a ‘new club’ in Rangers.
“I don’t know… a nice friendly welcome from everybody,” Hartley replied, when asked what sort of reception he thought the player should now expect.
“I think we just try to focus on the football side, that’s the important thing for me and the squad.
“You’ve got to handle the situation wherever we go. We have to go to Celtic Park on Wednesday night and we have to handle that also. When you go and play in front of a large support you’ve got to show your true character and your mentality and we’ve got to handle all of that as a team, not just one player.”
Former Celtic player Hartley, who expressed satisfaction at the “professional clinical and well deserved” way his mean had beaten Rangers’ fellow Championship side, then took his turn to risk inducing the wrath of the Ibrox support when he accepted that Dundee’s Premiership status means they can be considered favourites for the tie.
“I think people will see us as favourites because we’re in a different league, but it’s a cup game and anything can happen, but we’ve just got to make sure we’re ready for Saturday’s game against Inverness.
“We’ve got a massive week coming up. We’ve not got a big squad, it’s tight, so we’ll just have to look at the team and the preparation of the players and how they are.”
As to whether or not it is a stronger squad than Rangers boast Hartley was more careful, however.
“I don’t know., I tend to just look at my own team,” he responded.
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