Mark McGhee is relishing being in the dugout for the first time as Dundee manager on Sunday after feeling like a helpless bystander during his opening six matches in charge.
The Dens Park boss had to watch his first four games from the stand as he served a touchline ban carried over from his previous stint in Scottish football with Motherwell before he watched the last two matches on his laptop as a bout of coronavirus left him confined to his house.
McGhee is excited about finally being able to join assistant Simon Rusk in the technical area for Sunday’s home match against Rangers.
“I have to say the impact on me personally, the stress of being out of the dugout for all those games, and also being at home with Covid for two games, was much, much worse than I imagined,” he said. “Before I thought, ‘it’s fine, I’ll manage this’, but it was horrible.
“I wasn’t able to have a lot of influence from the side. Simon managed the dugout as well as he could but personally it felt dreadful being up in the stand and then being at home.
“Simon is here for a reason, he’s got a certain job to do here, and I have a different job to do here. We both play our own parts and the sum of the two parts is what’s required.
“For these six games he’s been out there on his own, so it’s not as powerful as it will hopefully be with the two of us standing there making decisions and influencing what’s going on on the pitch. I think it’s really important that we’re back together.”
Dundee are bottom of the cinch Premiership and have not won any of McGhee’s six games in charge.
“The most important thing in terms of us getting a result on Sunday is what the team do on the pitch,” he said. “If I can influence them before the game or from the dugout, then that will help, but it’s really about the team performing.
“We know they can do better than they did against Rangers last Sunday (in the Scottish Cup) and also in the second half against St Mirren. They’ve got to show the level of performance that we saw against Motherwell away (in a 1-1 draw) if they’re going to have any chance of getting anything against Rangers.”
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