Paul Hartley spoke to the press ahead of this weekend’s trip to Fir Park. Dundee come into the game on the back of last week’s win over Rangers at Dens but the manager is only looking forward, he said, “It’s a game we are looking forward to. Last week was terrific but that is now gone, all the focus is on a tough away fixture at Motherwell, who have good players. They have had a couple of bad results but we know they are a real threat. We have to try and take last weeks performance into this weeks game.”
The win saw Dundee jump back into the top six, somewhere the manager and club aspire to be come the split in April, “We’ve managed to get in there, we feel there is maybe only one place left in there and 4 or 5 teams trying to get in. We’ve given ourselves an opportunity but we’ve got to continue what we did last week. There is no point in that being a one off game in terms of the work rate, the pressing game and the overall work rate of the players. That has got to continue into this week and from now until the end of the season.”
“We were bottom of the league in October, but it show the difference a few months can make. All credit to the players as it shows how hard they have worked to turn things around. We are not out of the woods yet but we want to obviously be looking up the way but we still know there is a lot of points to play for and we know there isn’t much different between sixth and the bottom so we want to try and make that gap bigger, keep working hard, keep the attitude the same. We want to be in the top six and we have to keep working hard to stay there.”
Dundee have faced Motherwell twice this season, gaining a draw and a victory over the Fir Park side so far in the campaign, however, the manager is aware of the threat they have, “They are always a dangerous team. Good players in the final third with McDonald and Moult, young Cadden and Pearson back, we know they are a threat and we’ve had some tough games against them and I’m expecting another tough game.”
James McPake and David Mitchell will both miss out through injury
Subscribers can watch the full press conference with Paul Hartley and Julen Etxabeguren on www.dundeefc.co.uk/deetv
