No pressure from owners despite slide, says Mccann

Dundee boss admits team’s poor start is frustrating but he and his players are working hard to turn things around

Dundee boss Neil Mccann insists he does not feel under pressure from the club’s American owners despite the Dark Blues’ poor start to the season.

The manager and his players will travel to face Rangers at Ibrox today sitting rock bottom of the Premiership with no points to their name having lost their last five matches in a row.

Mccann is the first to admit that is simply not good enough but he still retains faith in himself and the team that results will turn.

And the 44-year-old believes that feeling is shared by the man he works with on a daily basis at Dens, managing director John Nelms.

Mccann said: “I’ve got a great relationship with John. I am very mindful of the fact that we’ve not been getting results. We started very similarly last year, in terms of results and fixtures.

“My relationship with John is brilliant and we speak all the time.

“I don’t feel any pressure from John. I work under my own pressure, because I set myself high standards. I work hard and my team works equally as hard. We are all trying to get the results that we are striving for.

“I’m not frightened of pressure. I came into this job under an enormous amount of pressure to take it.

“I then had a certain amount of pressure to take it permanently. I’m not frightened of where we are in the table. All we can do is keep working hard. I still love my job.”

When asked if he had spoken to Nelms to ask for reassurances that he and owner Tim Keyes still believed the manager was on the right track, Mccann said: “I haven’t had any of those conversations at all.

“I haven’t gone looking for it and it hasn’t been given so as far as I am concerned, it is a non-event just now. John knows how hard I work here and how hard we are trying to get results.

“The frustration element comes when it doesn’t happen when the 11 take the pitch on a Saturday.

“I can only do my job and the boys can only do theirs. We are working and trying so hard to turn it around.”

Mccann acknowledged that football management was an unforgiving environment but it is a job that consumes him entirely.

He said: “Every manager will feel different levels of pressure.

“It is all relative. If you are working at the top of the game with multi-millions to spend, that brings its own pressures.

“Where we are working it is the same pressure. At the end of the day, it is your job to get results for your football club.

“Your job carries the responsibility of all the fans who want the same outcome – winning football.

“The pressure I live with is something I was aware of I was walking into.

“I didn’t come in here and think, ‘This is more pressure’. It is always the same pressure and I have to find a way that gets us to win a game.

“It clearly has an impact on your home life because you have to work every minute. Your life is consumed – and it should be consumed as a footballer – to do your very best.