PSG NO MATCH FOR LINKS PARK FARE

NEIL McCANN was in no rush to catch his team’s Betfred Cup quarter-final opponents in action against Paris Saint-Germain. Not when the action at Links Park, Montrose, was such satisfying viewing that he ‘could have watched it for another two hours’.

A 4-2 win over Aberdeen continued Dundee’s unbeaten Development League form before McCann left reality to belatedly catch up with fallout from how the fantasy football team from France performed in Glasgow.

There was chat about the class and cash chasm that Celtic were unable to overcome. Then there was Brendan Rodgers discussing the difficulties of convincing his players to be brave on the ball against the very best.

McCann gave a knowing nod to the scenario. For it is the Celtic manager with the abundant riches this midweek, in comparison to ninth-placed Dundee. It will be McCann stepping into the shoes of Rodgers trying to figure out a way to bridge the yawning financial inequality. And it is the Dundee manager echoing the ethics of Rodgers, stressing that he will place demands on his Dens Park players in preference to parking a bus on their own turf.

McCann said: ‘I didn’t watch all of the PSG game, watching our Under-20s is a lot more important to me. And I saw my team play, honestly, I have to say, a brilliant game of football.

‘Then it was funny watching bits of the CelticPSG game, I saw the goals, and hearing about the gulf that sometimes people talk. Then Brendan talking about his players being brave enough to still play football in that environment. Well, I know a lot of the teams in the Premiership will probably feel they can relate to that. It really is a different standard of player you’re coming up against.

‘I know there is a disparity of budgets, a huge one. And there is such an attraction about getting a real class calibre of player. But I am delighted with what I’ve got here. So I’m not going to cast an envious eye across at them. Every manager in the Premiership would love that type of budget.

‘But we haven’t and we’ve got to earn the right to try to compete with what we have. So I am really looking forward to going up against Celtic, a really hard test for us in a quarter-final.

‘We must come up with something, of course, that allows us to be solid and reduces the spaces that Celtic like to operate in.

‘But when we have it I will not just ask them to smash it up the pitch. That’s not fair to the fans, I don’t think it’s fair to the players because we’ve got good footballers here. And I don’t want to play like that.’