The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Dark Blues boss out to expose Celtic weaknesses
Hartley draws inspiration from Rangers’ performance in Old Firm clash
Paul Hartley came up with the perfect game plan to get the better of Rangers last month.
And the Dundee boss hasn’t ruled out a similar high press, high risk and high reward approach to Sunday’s clash with champions-elect Celtic.
“You can do that against any team,” said Hartley.
“I don’t want to give too much away but if you’re brave enough and you’ve got the players to do it, why not? We’re at home and we have to make sure we get on the front foot and don’t invite pressure on us.”
St Mirren matched up well for much of the game in a recent Scottish Cup tie at Celtic Park and Hartley was at Parkhead to watch Rangers make a good job of negating the Hoops’ strengths.
“I thought a draw was a fair result on Sunday,” he said.
“Rangers set up to try and frustrate Celtic. They stopped their good players performing and they had chances at the other end.
“That’s stuff we’ve worked on from the start of the week – how we can expose Celtic’s weaknesses. We know where they have strengths and we need to cope with that. But when we’re on the ball we need to make sure we perform.”
Hartley and his team can take heart from two narrow losses against Celtic this season. “It’s an important game for us,” he said. “We’ve got five before the split. We know they’re an excellent team with some outstanding players and we have to be at our maximum to try and get anything out of the match.
“In the game at Celtic Park we could have got something when El Bakhtaoui was through on goal in the last minute. It was a fantastic opportunity.
“For the game here, the first half was disappointing for us. But we’ve made sure we’ve been competitive in any game we’ve played them.”
The former Celtic player added: “They’ve got players who can win games on their own. They’re a different team to the ones I’ve faced or been in.
“They have real quality and energy and have a youthfulness about them as well.
“Financially they’re stretching away from the rest, there’s no getting away from that. All the rest can do is try to perform the best we can.”
An Aberdeen defeat against Hearts tomorrow, setting up the chance for Celtic to clinch the title at Dens the following day would seem like a worstcase scenario for Dundee.
But Hartley isn’t spending any time worrying about it.
“It might give them a wee added edge if results go their way on Saturday.
“But that won’t concern us. We’re on our own patch and we want to put on a good performance just as much as Celtic.”