Dee boss McCann: Not good enough

“NOT good enough” was the assessment from Dundee interim boss Neil McCann after watching his side fall to a poor defeat at home to Inverness last night.

A sloppy start saw a second minute Billy Mckay goal quickly added to by Alex Fisher inside 10 minutes and from there Caley Thistle held on to keep their hopes of staying up alive.

Dundee’s place in the Premiership next season is assured but Neil is determined to see his side bounce back on Saturday at Hamilton.

He said: “We had a couple of boys carrying knocks tonight, whether or not that had an effect on certain performances, I don’t know.

“Overall I don’t care if we’re safe, I’m delighted for the club, I’m delighted for the fans and I’m so proud of the players that have got us into this position.

“However, our results have been ground out by sheer hard determined work and I’m not saying they didn’t work hard last night but you have to have every component working in this league because if there’s two or three off it you come a cropper to results like that.

“The overriding feeling is massive disappointment. I’m delighted we’ve retained our Premiership status but that’s not good enough, certainly not if we want to make an impact and not be in this sort of position.

“When we went 2-0 down you could feel the tension start to come back to the players.

“We tried to change it and I’ll look at it and whether it was effective enough, probably not.

“We had some really good performances last night but I think we had a couple of very poor ones.”

The interim gaffer insisted there is nobody “on their holidays” at Dens despite having nothing to play for.

“Nobody is on their holidays here and nobody has been on their holidays,” he added. “I have to say that categorically, I didn’t see that coming.

“We have a very difficult game against Hamilton. We have set very high standards and they have come up short and that is really disappointing.

“The boys are gutted. There is nobody celebrating, cracking open champagne or beers thinking we are safe and this is the last game at Dens.

“I know they are hurting and I am hurting. “We will come again on Saturday. “Don’t anybody be thinking we are celebrating and taking the eye off the ball, we are absolutely not.”

Meanwhile, Craig Wighton has been called up to the Scotland U/20 squad for the Toulon Tournament that gets under way on May 31.

Interim boss Neil McCann insists that he was unimpressed by his side’s loss to Inverness, despite their achievements in securing safety.