The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
McCann praises Dundee character
RAITH ROVERS 1 DUNDEE 2: Hendry heads home stoppage-time winner
Dundee boss Neil McCann praised his side’s winning mentality after the Dark Blues secured a dramatic last-gasp victory in the Betfred Cup against Raith Rovers last night.
ThevisitorswentaheadthroughSofienMoussa only to be pegged back by a Lewis Vaughan goal.
Then deep in stoppage time, Jack Hendry scored the winner for Dundee although Faissal El Bakhtaoui cheekily tried to claim the credit for the goal. However, McCann admitted he was just glad to see the ball go into the back of the net.
The manager said: “I think big Jack is up aggressively and it might have come off Faiss but I’m not sure who gets that but I don’t really care! They can fight it out.”
McCann continued: “But to get the win showed a bit of character. There is loads to work on and there is loads that I am disappointed with tonight with how we played and how we moved it.
“We played with two wide players and I don’t think we got too much joy out of them but that is credit to Raith.
“There were elements in our play in the first half that we wanted to change in the second.
“It was better but we have been working hard on our mind-set. Even in training, everything we have done this pre-season, is geared towards winning.
“We have a wee thing going at the club that I won’t go into in too much detail where you get rewarded if you win even in games in training.
“Tonight I was really pleased that we took the ball back (after Raith equalised) and we weren’t feeling sorry for ourselves. We just went later and went up the park to get the win so I was delighted with that aspect of the game.”
A disappointed Raith manager Barry Smith admitted he was proud of his side’s efforts against the Premiership outfit.
Smith said: “To be honest, I don’t think we did enough to win the game. But I didn’t think we deserved to get beaten with the workrate and the effort the boys put in.
“It was a great response from going a goal down to level the game against a Premiership club. So there is frustration but we didn’t deserve to get beaten.”