Dundee may be in their best form of the season so far but boss James McPake admits their next task is as big as it gets.
The Dark Blues face the daunting prospect of travelling to champions Rangers for a Premiership clash at Ibrox.
The Glasgow giants haven’t lost a home league match since March 2020 when Hamilton shocked them 1-0.
But McPake expects his side to “have a go” at Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s side when the opportunity presents itself.
And their recent form sees his side heading to Ibrox in good spirits.
“In the four fixtures of this second round, we’ve had three clean sheets, three wins and the only defeat to Celtic,” McPake said.
“You set targets and we were nowhere near that target in the first set of fixtures but we already have more points from the last four as we got in the first 11.
“That’s a positive but we know the task at Ibrox is a huge one.
“We need to be at our very best going in there to get anything.
“We have a gameplan to set up defensively but we also need one to go and have a go.
“You don’t want to just sit back and let them come at you.
“We have players who can hurt teams and we need to have an attacking threat as well.”
‘We’re going in with real belief’
The two sides have faced each other once already this term, a Joe Aribo goal enough to see then-manager Steven Gerrard leave Dens Park with the points in September.
Dundee took heart from their performance that day after seeing a Jason Cummings penalty saved in the second half.
McPake said: “I think this will be a different game. That one was at Dens and they now have a different manager.
“But know we can compete with anybody when we’re right.
“But we need to be at our levels, when we are we are a good side and have shown that.
“We’re going in with real belief in what we do and it has to be about us.
“We’re on the back of two really good performances but we need to be at consistently high levels.”
