Mark McGhee: Dundee appoint new manager upon Gordon Strachan advice

Mark McGhee says Gordon Strachan "was batting for me" after being appointed Dundee manager until the summer.

McGhee's former Aberdeen team-mate, who is Dundee's technical director, suggested the 64-year-old to Dundee chief executive John Nelms.

Nelms revealed discussions within the club had been ongoing for a couple of weeks about the best way forward to ensure they have the best possible chance of retaining their place in the Scottish Premiership. They are currently a point off bottom place.

James McPake was sacked as manager on Wednesday, despite winning his last two games, and McGhee only became aware of the chance to manage again in the past few days.

"I've been in James' position as often as I've been in this position so I know how it works," McGhee said. "I was made to understand that I was one amongst a couple at least that Dundee were considering. Gordon was batting for me but there were other people.

"Gordon doesn't give anything away. He keeps his cards close to his chest. It's only last minute that it became the idea that I would come here. We've not been talking about this for months - it's not like that."

'I keep wanting to prove myself'

The former Leicester, Wolves, Brighton and Motherwell boss, who has an outstanding six-game touchline ban to serve, hopes he can be at Dens Park "long term". He will be assisted by Simon Rusk and Dave Mackay, the latter having worked with McPake.

McGhee, who played as a striker for Aberdeen, Celtic, Newcastle and Scotland, left his role as assistant at National League club Stockport in October after Rusk's sacking, with the side 10th in England's fifth tier at the time.

His last spell as manager was with Eastbourne Borough, where he took over as caretaker in February 2019 but was not kept on after their narrow escape from relegation in National League South.

That followed a two-month spell in charge of Barnet, but he was moved to a "head of technical" role as Graham Westley took over as head coach, then dismissed from that new role shortly after.

McGhee's first spell managing in Scotland was at Motherwell from 2007 and he helped the Steelmen finish third in Scotland's top flight and qualify for European competition for the first time in 13 years.

After spells in charge of Aberdeen and Bristol Rovers, he returned to Fir Park in 2015 midway through a four-year spell as Scotland assistant under Strachan. He left Well in 2017.

"I do have a history of going into clubs and being able to turn it around in the short term," said McGhee. "We want to be here in the longer term.

"I keep wanting to prove myself. I keep wanting to prove people right and I keep wanting to prove people wrong. And the day I stop feeling like that is the day I stop doing it."

Departing McPake 'like a son' to Dundee

McGhee expressed sympathy for McPake and said Nelms had been "in agony" coming to the decision to change manager.

Nelms echoed Dundee's thanks in the statement that announced McPake's departure and said the 37-year-old "is like a son to us".

"We're in a situation where we thought it was time for us to have a change," Nelms explained. "We have a problem, we need to stay in the league, we want to stay in the league.

"Gordon and I started having conversations a few weeks back. We started having external conversations with people to say, 'is there a better solution than what we currently have?'

"Mark has a touchline ban, everyone knows about that. We think that there are ways around that and we think that that is not going to hinder anything that we need to do on the park."

And McGhee said of his ban: "It won't be any problem, it really won't. We have a guy on the bench, Simon Rusk, with Dave Mackay, who are well capable of marshalling the troops from the side. We have communication methods these days, mic'd up and phones of course."