Barry Smith has given Jocky Scott a warm welcome back to football as Stirling Albion boss but will be doing all he can to catch his new team.
The 25-point deduction imposed by the Scottish Football League for going into administration has left Smith’s side four points adrift of Albion at the bottom of the table.
Such has been their form, though, that they look increasingly likely to overtake the Forthbank men in the weeks and months ahead.
However, the return to the first division frame of Scott, who was sacked by Dundee last March despite the Dens men being top of the league at the time, is intriguing to say the least.
The two gaffers are on good terms, with Smith first brought back to the Dark Blues by Scott as youth coach in 2008 before replacing Gordon Chisholm as manager last October.
The 36-year-old played under Scott as well as working with him as a coach. So a liberal sprinkling of spice has just been added to the scrap for survival.
However, Smith, who has been busy preparing for the visit of Falkirk, will not let Scott’s appointment deflect him from his task of catching Albion.
“I am happy Jocky is back in the game and it is easy to see why Stirling have gone for him,” said Smith.
“I think Jocky was out of the game for far too long considering his experience and a lot of clubs could do with someone like him.
“I obviously wish him well and am naturally pleased for him but I have got a job here at Dundee to make sure that we stay up.
“I still keep in touch with Jocky and that won’t change but we both have respective jobs to do. We at Dundee won’t be focusing on who the manager of another club is.
“We are just thinking about what we have to do and that will not change.”Fired upScott (63), for his part, declared his desire to prove the Dark Blues wrong for dismissing him.
Unveiled as Albion boss after the departures of John O’Neill and Roddy Grant following Stirling’s run of seven straight defeats, Scott hopes he can defy the odds to keep the part-time, fans-owned club in the first division.
“The wounds are obviously still raw from what happened at Dundee,” Scott admitted.
“We were sitting three points clear at the top with nine games to play. I was confident we were going to win the league.
“The players were confident. They knew they had had a couple of blips but it was a good team and they knew what was at stake.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see that through and, unfortunately for Dundee Football Clubespecially the players and the fansthey didn’t see it through, either.
“It is a big regret for me, especially the manner in which it was done.
“It makes me fired up to show that I can still do a job.
“If, at the end of the season, we achieve staying in the first division then I might have proved a point to someone.
“It is a hard task, but it is not an impossible one.”
Scott declared recently he didn’t envisage ever returning to his old club, but will now line up in the opposite dugout when Albion go there on Sunday, April 10.
“I said I didn’t see myself going back to Dens unless it was with a visiting club but I have to go back now and I look forward to it,” he said.
“It will be different, standing in the opposition dug-out, getting pelters from the fans instead of maybe cheers.
“But Dundee are in their position only because they went into administration. They are in a false position.”
Meanwhile, Smith, who will have Leigh Griffiths available for a farewell against Falkirk before he completes his £150,000 move to Wolves, has called on his team to improve their discipline.
Dundee are running with a skeleton squad of just 13 first-team players and, after seeing Griffiths and Sean Higgins both sent off recently, Smith knows they can’t afford to suffer any more bans.
“We have to watch our discipline and, to be fair, the boys know that,” he said.
“We can’t afford stupid bookings or sendings-off because the squad is so small to cope with it.
“However, we can’t take away that natural aggression and tell them don’t go in for tacklesit’s a fine line.
“If someone goes in for a hard tackle and the referee thinks it is a foul, then there is not much we can do. But things like dissent and kicking the ball away are not on.
“The worry for me is that I think football is becoming a non-contact sport. If there is a foul it shouldn’t necessarily mean it is a booking every time.”