Midfielder Mark O’Hara has been impressed with the quality of the new signings at Dundee.
Good as they’ve been, though, he believes the midweek pre-season win at St Mirren saw an “old boy” show just how vital he is to the team.
It’s why, despite speculation for most of the year that Scott Bain would be moving on this summer, he’s hoping the goalkeeper is going nowhere.
Dundee came away with an impressive 3-1 win down in Paisley but, as impressive as some of their forward play was, Bain’s performance was instrumental in getting the build-up to the new campaign off to a winning start.
“Scott Bain is a massive player for us and he showed his quality with four or five great saves the other night,” said O’Hara.
“He is a huge asset for our team and he can help us kick on and get higher up the league than where we finished last year.
“He has shown already this week what he’s all about and we’re hoping he is going to be here for the season. It would be sad to see that ability go from the team because he is such an important player for us.”
While Bain’s place in the line-up looks secure so long as he remains on the books at Dens Park, O’Hara admits that, for every outfield player, there is an ongoing battle to make sure they are involved when the first competitive outing — at Raith Rovers in the Betfred Cup in just under a fortnight.
And with a new manager in Neil McCann and a plethora of fresh signings, the 21-year-old admits his second pre-season as a Dark Blue doesn’t feel all that different from his first.
“I do feel like a new player again, 100%, but that’s a good thing.
“There are changes all about the club just now, so everyone is pushing themselves to the limit to try to catch the manager’s eye to make sure they are in the team.
“All the new boys have various qualities and they are giving us different things and new depths to the squad we maybe didn’t have last year. You can see that from the training and now the game at St Mirren.
“Our first two goals showed Scott Allan’s quality with his delivery to set them up.
“We didn’t get enough goals from set-pieces last year and that’s something we are looking to change.
“Hopefully, we can get goals from the good balls into the box from Scott. Having him is good for someone like myself because I make runs into the box.
“It’s ideal to know if I’m making those runs, there is someone like him playing the balls in there.”
Next up in the build-up are Arbroath at Gayfield tomorrow and O’Hara is looking for the same result as midweek, plus a step up in performance.
“St Mirren were a wee bit ahead of us, I think they’d already played a couple of games.
“It was more than competitive and I think it was a good test for us.
“There were a few tackles flying in and I think that’s exactly what you need. It was good for us all to get 45 minutes in and it will do us a lot of good.
“We looked not too far away and we will only get better with another couple of games.
“Now it’s Arbroath and we’ve been working hard in training to try to make sure we are in the team there.
“We’ll see the way the manager wants to go but you want to be on there from the start if you can because the season is not that far away now.”
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.