Saturday sees the first of six games throughout December as Dundee travel to take on Kilmarnock at Rugby Park. Paul Hartley spoke to the press ahead of the match and confirmed he is pleased with how things have been going recently but is determined to keep the good run going, “It’s a tough period for us so we will use the whole squad. The starting eleven are performing well just now so we need to keep it going, keep working hard and don’t change too much.”
On what has changed over the past month to bring result, the manager said “Changed the style, the way we are playing. I think Haber has made a huge difference for us but the team as a whole have been working really hard. They’ve been hard to beat, playing on the front foot and playing with confidence now.”
“We have to work hard here. We work hard every time we train and out on the pitch, the players have shown that in the last month or so, they’ve had their critics but we’ve seen a different side to them.”
“I’m really pleased with how they have been playing but they have to keep it going, we’ve not done anything yet. The league is so tight and you want to keep getting as many points as we can. This is a really important month for us.”
The match is Dundee’s first trip to Rugby Park this season but the teams played out a 1-1 draw earlier this year at Dens, Paul gave his view on what he expects from the match, “Another tough game, I watched them against Celtic, they performed well. They had some good chances against a quality team, they’ve not had a game for a couple of weeks so they will be itching to do well but any time we’ve been there the games have been fairly tight, i’d expect that on Saturday.”
On the team news front, the manager confirmed Mark O’Hara will miss out and Nicky Low will return to the squad, but also that Kevin Gomis may also miss the match, he said “Mark will miss out, he’s still another week to 10 days away. Nicky Low will come into the squad, Gomis may miss out as his wife has gone into labour and he had to fly back to France during the week.”
Subscribers can watch full pre match press conference with Paul Hartley and Darren O’Dea on www.dundeefc.co.uk/deetv
