We need to go to Ibrox and make sure we start well this time
SAYS PAUL HARTLEY
THE last time a Dundee side brimming with confidence visited Glasgow to play Rangers, a long afternoon was expected by a wary Ibrox faithful.
In the end, it took Mark Warburton’s Championship winners-elect just 13 seconds to ease the nerves as Paul Hartley’s on-form Premiership side were blown away by a hurricane start.
Harry Forrester’s quickfire opener back in March set Warburton’s men on the road to a fine 4-0 victory and a place in the Scottish Cup quarter-finals.
Tomorrow, Dundee head back to Govan on the back of successive wins over Hamilton and Motherwell.
Those two victories, with no goals conceded, put an end to a worrying run of six straight losses by the Dark Blues and lifted Hartley’s men off the foot of the table.
But the Dundee boss knows his side can’t afford a repeat of their last visit if they are to have any chance of recording the club’s first win at Ibrox in 15 years.
Not since goals from Claudio Caniggia and Steven Milne secured a famous 2-0 triumph in March 2001 have Dundee buried Rangers in their own backyard.
‘The last time we were at Ibrox in the cup, we didn’t give ourselves a chance,’ reflected Hartley.
‘But that game is gone and I won’t even mention it to the players. We are a different group with different personnel these days.
‘However, what I will be stressing to them is the need to go to Ibrox and start well.
‘Rangers have a good group of players, they are a good team and they have a good manager. When you go to Ibrox, you know you are in for a difficult game, so you have to go there with a game plan that will, hopefully, get you a positive result.
‘If you want to have a chance at these kind of venues, you have to make sure you are nice and solid and that you stay in the game from the start.
‘There will be spells when we don’t have the ball and we will have to work hard to get it back and then make the right passes.
‘But the important thing is to start the game well and to keep it tight. Hopefully, we can do that on Saturday.’
The back-to-back wins over Hamilton and Motherwell, which drew a sigh of relief from the Dark Blues faithful after such a poor start to the campaign, have still left Hartley’s side just one point above bottom club Ross County.
Yet, such is the concertina-like state of the league table this season, they are also just two points off sixth place.
And Hartley could not be more pleased with the character his side have shown of late.
‘The last couple of games, we’ve been excellent and we head to Ibrox in confident mood,’ he said.
‘We are feeling better about ourselves after recent results. When you win games, the next week’s training is always good.
‘The international break was good for us in some ways but maybe it also came at the wrong time after our good results.
‘But I’ve been really pleased at how we have been performing as a unit and how we have kept two clean sheets in two games.
‘We have managed to get ourselves closer to the teams above us. But we know there is still a lot of hard work to be done.’
Hartley will still be without influential midfielder Mark O’Hara, who has missed three games since he had a hernia operation just over a month ago. The 20-year-old has returned to training in the last few days but the Ibrox match has come too soon for him.
Apart from long-term injury victim James McPake, who remains ‘a good bit away’ from a comeback, Hartley has a full quota of defenders to pick from, with Kostadin Gadzhalov and Kevin Gomis back fit.
Former Aberdeen midfielder Nicky Low is struggling to make the game but there is a boost for Dundee as striker Faissal El Bakhtaoui returns to the squad.
Hartley has a major selection dilemma in goal, however.
Should he stick with secondchoice keeper David Mitchell, who has kept two clean sheets in his last two games? Or does he restore fit-again first-choice Scott Bain, whose form at Dens Park has seen him occasionally elevated to Gordon Strachan’s Scotland squad?
‘We do have a decision to make,’ nodded Hartley.
‘Mitch has done well since he has come into the team and Scott Bain is a very talented keeper. So, that’s the choice I have got. I will make my mind up on Friday but I know it will be difficult.’