Mark McGhee has revealed he went to a Dundee game to support James McPake – before taking his job as gaffer.
McGhee was named the Dens Park boss on Thursday, the day after McPake was emptied from the hot seat. He admits that long-time friend Gordon Strachan gave him a ‘leg up’ for the job in his role as Dundee’s technical director.
But he’s adamant the former Scotland boss WON’T have an influence on how he manages the team or Dundee’s recruitment while he’s in charge.
And McGhee says they both attended a match against St Mirren in October to offer moral support to McPake after he had suffered a 5-0 home loss to Ross County.
He said: “Gordon has no input to the first team at Dundee.
“Even with James, that’s how it worked. Of course, he was there to be a mentor if James wanted to ask for a bit of advice.
“But he will have no real part in the first team.
“He only went to a couple of Dundee games and I went with him to one at a time when James was under a bit of pressure.
“Gordon knew there weren’t many of Dundee’s directors going and said: ‘Come on, we’ll go and give him a bit of moral support’. And we did.
“While, yes, he is part of the club - he’s not part of the first team and he’s not involved in recruitment.”
McGhee’s appointment raised a few eyebrows last week, after McPake led his side to two straight away wins over Hearts in the league and Peterhead in the Scottish Cup.
McGhee says No.2 Simon Rusk will do most of the coaching at Dens.
Ahead of today’s trip to Celtic - and the first of his six-game touchline ban - he said: “Simon will be the hands-on guy at training.
“On Friday I let Simon take the session and I tweaked little things. That’s what I’ll continue to do.”
