Sunday training decision necessary, says McCann

He said: “We were in on Sunday but I didn’t see them. I was in but Garts took the training and they did a bit of running to get the garbage out of their legs.

“The players know what’s expected. It could have been five or 6-0 and that still might not have excused them being in on a Sunday.

“I don’t think you can be deliberate with things like that and have a preconceived idea about things, it was natural.

“I made the decision on the back of what I’d seen. I don’t think you can ever think, ‘I’m going to have them in this week’ because it quickly becomes false.

“It felt necessary, it was a reaction and if they perform under-par again like that then they’ll be expecting to be in.

“It’s not nice and it doesn’t just impact on the players, it impacts on the people who work here as well. But nobody cried about it, we have a good group here.

“We had a right good meeting on Monday about the direction the club wants to go in and the direction I want to go in. It was great and we’ve had a good training session since and we are looking forward to the game on Wednesday.

“I went to see Cowdenbeath play United at the weekend. I had them watched a couple of times already so I have formed a real opinion of them under Billy Brown.”

McCann admitted that former Inverness defender Josh Meekings has been in at Dens.

However, the manager insisted that he was only extending training facilities to the free agent.

He added: “Josh has been here training. We have given him facilities because he’s friends with Vinny (James Vincent) and a few of the lads.

“But we haven’t spoken to him about anything other than training here.

“Obviously I would love to add a player of Josh’s quality but that’s not even on the table yet.”

Faissal El Bakhtaoui suffered a knock against Buckie and will miss tonight but Marcus Haber returns to the squad.

Craig Wighton will need knee operation.