Gaffer has to keep Dundee heads up

DUNDEE boss Neil McCann’s big task this week will be keeping his players in a positive mood.

For the second week running his team turned in a decent performance and created some good chances but lost.

And while three Premiership defeats in a row is not how the Dark Blues wanted to kick off the league campaign, McCann will be reminding his players that at least the losses at Hamilton and now Aberdeen contained extended periods of good play.

Of course, he will be concerned over the losing run and conceding over two goals a game so far.

Over the next few days, though, his task is to have them prepared as well as possible for Sunday’s home clash with Hibs.

And that means hammering into them the good points from the last couple of weeks.

It might not be as easy as it sounds, because, as a player, there are few worse feelings that coming off after a game when you believe you’ve played quite well but have nothing to show for it.

On the opening day, Dundee lost to Ross County after playing badly. Following games like that you know what you need to do to put things right.

When you play well and still lose, you are often left scratching your head and confidence can dip.

As worrying as Dundee’s start to the season is becoming, I can’t help but feel they’ve been hit with awful luck.

The season is barely a month old and two strikers, Sofien Moussa and Craig Wighton, have already had to have operations.

At Pittodrie two more, Marcus Haber and Faissal El Bakhtaoui, got injuries in the same move. That’s unbelievable.

On top of that, Dundee have lost skipper Darren O’Dea for three weeks with an injury and new arrival Josh Meekings, who looks a very good signing, is not quite ready because of an injury he picked up last season.

You really couldn’t make it up, but what everyone at Dens has to remember is other teams will have these kind of runs where they feel they’re not getting rewarded for their performances and injuries strike.

At the same time they must realise that, however well they may be doing in terms of general play, the bottom line is results must improve.

Dundee went down 2-1 to Aberdeen on Saturday for their third league defeat on the bounce.