Mark McGhee insists he doesn't care if Dundee should have had a late penalty against Celtic - because he's proud of his players regardless.
Veteran McGhee was in charge of his first game as Dundee gaffer but had to watch from the Celtic Park stands as he serves a touchline ban carried over from his time at Motherwell. .
The Premiership's bottom side led through a Danny Mullen strike and pulled it back to 2-2 after a Giorgos Giakoumakis double.
They fell behind once more after the Greek hitman sealed his hat-trick but could have have had a penalty at the death when the ball appeared to strike Jota's hand.
And while McGhee admits that there was a handball, he insists he "doesn't care" whether it was given or not.
He said on Sportsound: "I've seen it a dozen times. There was a handball, but whether it was a penalty or not, I'm not exactly sure technically what the rules are.
"I think the claim was it hit someone's head then came back off his hand.
"But it's of no relevance and it's of no significance. We don't care about that. We're more interested in our own performance than we are about the referees."
And a proud McGhee continued: "The result is irrelevant. I think you can lose at Parkhead but the performance is what you are looking for.
"If that brings us something then great, but as long as it's positive. I think there were a huge amount of positives to take.
"We played a 5, 3, one-and-a-half and one-and-a-half. We tried to give ourselves two up front whenever possible.
"It worked for us at times. We passed the ball and that was one thing I was hoping for, that we'd have the bottle to play.
"We had good spells of that. I knew the effort would be there, for each other if not for Simon and I yet.
"Hopefully as they grow to love us they'll do it for us.
"The determination to do what we asked them was good in that respect.
"I was encouraged and I was disappointed for them as I thought they deserved something out of the game."
