Dee boss has no fears over

Manager has targets but is confident he already has a good squad at Dens

Dundee manager James McPake insists he is not concerned about missing out on transfer targets to Premiership clubs.

With McPake’s Dark Blues not back in Championship action until October 17 and the top flight set to return on August 1, they could be up against it when competing for players.

The Dee boss, however, feels it’s always a battle when striving to secure signatures.

“I’ve no concerns over that because I think even if we were starting at the same time as the Premiership we’d be facing the same challenges,” he said.

“We missed out on a couple of players last season because they wanted to go and play in the top flight.

“On the flip side of that, we’ve managed to attract players down from the Premiership to come and play with us.

“It’s down to what you can offer the player and what each individual wants. Does the player want to come? Do they want to buy into what you’re doing at your club?

“I’m not worried about that in terms of losing out. We’ve got our targets but we’ve also got a very strong squad that just needs added to and tweaked.

“There’ll be no wholesale changes because we need a level of consistency.

“I did more in January than I wanted but there was a real need then to strengthen then because of injuries. Things like that always pop up so you can’t rule anything out in any transfer window.

“I genuinely think it could be the opposite where there’ll be a lot of players out there this season looking for clubs compared to normal times.

“They’ve still got to be the right ones, of course. But, yes, the likelihood is if a Premiership club are offering a player a deal they’ll probably want to go and play at the highest level

“Our job is to get them to Dundee and we’ve managed that in getting international players through the door in the last year.

“We can offer them a vision and the project we’re trying to build at this club and that’s what we’ll do again.”

McPake believes it will be a balancing act between now and the October start date as he manages his squad.

He will be looking to get his current crop up to speed, identify areas where they can strengthen and assess contract offers for expiring men Paul McGowan, Josh Meekings and Tom Field.

“It is still a balancing act with players coming at me every day from various different agents,” he added.

“I have found that in the last two weeks it has got really intense.

“We have a good squad and most of them are under contract.

“We started the recruitment process when we got the job and we think it works well.

“There is a lot of work goes into it, the character of the player, what they are like and all that stuff.

“It is all ongoing and we need to be ready for whatever happens.”

McPake cites last season’s January transfer window arrivals as an example of the quality which could be out there.

“We had to make changes in January, and one we felt we had to do because that can happen as well in Christophe Berra,” he explained.

“We have players on our list, but that is not to say we wouldn’t do something if something else pops up.

“That was the case in September when there was a deal we couldn’t say no to in Graham Dorrans.

“We felt we needed Christophe’s experience in January.

“We were going through a bad spell and he came in and helped, with Conor Hazard equally as good along with Josh Meekings and Jordon Forster playing beside them.

“Those four deserve enormous credit for the turnaround.”

Picture: SNS James McPake said there will be be a lot of players looking for clubs.