McGhee aims to return to help Dark Blues’ push for play-offs

Defender building up his fitness as he recovers from injury during shutdown

He didn’t expect to be recovering from injury in lockdown but Jordan McGhee hopes to play his part in Dundee seeing out the season.

The Dark Blues defender has been working his way back from surgery on an ongoing wrist problem since Scottish football went into shutdown almost three weeks ago.

The 23-year-old former Hearts and Falkirk man had been a pivotal figure in the Dee’s Championship campaign prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

And he insists he is doing everything he can to get back and, hopefully, help them secure a play-off place.

“I was in Dundee two weeks ago to get my cast off but ever since then I’ve been at home in East Kilbride,” he said.

“I’ve just been staying in the house apart from my training programme. I’ve been out running and I managed to get myself a set of weights – that’s all I can really do right now.

“Having broken a bone in my wrist, it’s been difficult. Obviously, because I can’t get in to see (physio) Gerry (Docherty) to do movements on it.

“He’s sending me stuff out, though, now I’ve had my cast off for a bit.

“I’ll crack on with that and, hopefully, by the time football comes around again it should be strengthened and ready to go.”

McGhee admits it’s a difficult situation for everyone right now but that he and his team-mates are staying fit and motivated as they hope to pick up where they left off.

He added: “I think some people will struggle but you don’t have an option right now other than to motivate yourself.

“The way the world is at the moment, you’ve either got the option to sit and watch TV, lying about doing nothing, or you go out and exercise yourself.

“Everyone in our changing-room will be going out to stay fit. I know the boys well enough to know everyone in the team is motivated to be successful.

“Running and making sure they’re ready to go when football resumes is a big part of that.

“It’s difficult because, normally, you’re building up towards a weekend where you’ve got a game coming up.

“We’ve not got that now, so it’s difficult to stay prepared for what may or may not happen physically and mentally.

“The fact you’re not with the boys as well makes training difficult. The

“The coaching staff keep on top of us with our fitness

mental aspect is hard for everyone at the minute, in all walks of life.

“We just need to get on with it and see what the outcome is then take it from there.

“We want to pick up where we left off because before the shutdown we started to hit a bit of form.

“We knew that what would happen it was just about getting the right balance in the team.

“I think we’ve got that now, so we’re just raring to go again and finish the season as strongly as possible.”

McGhee also revealed Dundee manager James McPake has been keeping on top of his troops remotely and the defender feels they are responding well.

“We’ve got a few WhatsApp groups – one with the coaches and one with the players.

“The coaching staff keep on top of us with our fitness stuff but everything is up in the air at the moment.

“The manager’s been good, though, in keeping us going. We’ve been given tasks like a weekly challenge on a Friday.

“Last week it was to do a 5k under 20 minutes on top of our programmes, which have been tailored and specifically set out.

“With regards to the manager, I think he trusts us all to go away and do it ourselves, but if we don’t we know we’ll be found out when we go back.”

Picture: SNS. Dundee’s Jordan McGhee, who had surgery on his wrist, is determined to be ready to play again if the season resumes.