Dundee boss Paul Hartley insists it is time for his players to do their talking on the pitch, not off it.
The Dark Blues were always going to be the target of criticism following Friday’s night’s 7-0 humiliation at Dens at the hands of a rampant Aberdeen side.
However, two of the harshest verbal volleys came courtesy of Dundee players, skipper Darren O’Dea and Paul McGowan, who did not spare themselves or their team-mates in their after-match interviews.
Hartley admits he didn’t have a problem with their brutally-honest assessments of the atrocious result and performance but the manager is now looking for a big reaction when his players take on Ross County in Dingwall tonight as they look to ease away from the drop zone.
He said: “Paul and Darren care, they said what they said after the game because that’s the way they felt.
“I don’t have a problem with that and hopefully we get a reaction now.
“They are passionate, they wear their hearts on their sleeves. Both of them are winners.
“Everyone has a different personality and they are quite willing to speak their minds.
“We have a quiet group in there and an experience like Friday was probably the first time they have had that.
“But I don’t think there’s a problem with the spirit. We have a really good dressing-room.
“There are no bad eggs or cliques, it isn’t in there.
“They are quiet, I know that, but I think they have got it in them to get a reaction and they have shown it before.
“We have seen them fight through in the past and now they have to do it again.
“It’s OK talking and having meetings, but the important thing is what happens on the pitch now.
“As players they have to go out and perform, that’s the bottom line.
“It’s not just about proving things to anyone else, they have to go and prove it to themselves.
“The players have taken a real doing, they’ve been hammered by everyone and rightly so because of the result and the performance.
“But it’s about personal pride now, they have to go out and bounce back from it.”
The Dundee players returned to training as planned at Dens on Sunday.
However, Hartley insisted there was no time to dwell on what happened on Friday night and instead he was keen to lift the mood as much as possible ahead of the Ross County game.
He added: “We have looked at our input – was the preparation right and did we set the team up correctly?
“We have come to the conclusion we did, so it’s about moving on and getting a reaction to last Friday night now.
“We have got to get over it quickly and I told the players on Sunday we have to be positive.
“There’s no point dwelling on it, it happened and it wasn’t nice but you have to move on.
“I have to pick the players up. If I’m full of doom and gloom then people pick that up and it gets you nowhere.”
While determined to accentuate the positive, Hartley insisted his players are fully aware of the precarious position they now find themselves in sitting just three points ahead of second bottom Hamilton.
The manager said: “We always thought we could get into the top six but we also knew we’d have to keep an eye on the teams behind us.
“The players know we’re in a battle now, everybody is aware of that.
“From now until the end of the season you have six teams fighting to get away from those bottom two places.
“I think every manager in the bottom six is saying it, it’s all about points and you have to forget about everything else.
“It has been a really strange season for us and it has been frustrating.
“We have been good in games and thought we were on a roll after Rangers and Motherwell.
“But consistency has been a real problem and we can’t shy away from that.
“We will have Marcus Haber back in the squad but Faissal El Bakhtaoui isn’t going to be available because he felt his calf.
“We will go up there with 17 players but we’ll just have to get on with it.”
