Dundee have made an offer to Montrose boss Ray Farningham to return to Dens as assistant manager to Barry Smith.
Farningham was given permission to speak to the Dark Blues by the Angus side last week and he has said: ”I have always had an ambition to get back into full-time football.”
Smith has been on a scouting mission in Iceland over the last few days but Dundee chief executive Scot Gardiner is hopeful that when the manager returns he will receive word from ”preferred candidate” Farningham that he has accepted the chance to rejoin the club he left when Jocky Scott was sacked as manager two years ago.
Gardiner said: ”We have made Ray an offer to become our assistant manager.
”We have had other people expressing interest through agents but he is our preferred candidate. Our talks have gone well but he has not put pen to paper yet.
”Barry is back from Iceland tomorrow and hopefully we will know one way or another then.”
Gardiner is also still waiting to hear whether the out-of-contract Dundee players Smith wants to retain will accept the new deals offered to them.
The likes of star men Nicky Riley, Stephen O’Donnell and Gary Irvine have yet to make their intentions known and Gardiner admitted that while no deadline has been set for an answer, the clock is ticking as the club gears up for next season’s promotion push.
He said: ”We haven’t set any deadlines as such but we would like an answer by the end of the week. The clock is ticking as we need to get things sorted as quickly as possible for next season.
”Six players have already left the club and we will have to replace them so we need to know if the current players who have been offered new deals will be staying.
”The new players we bring in have to complement the existing ones so if some of them are going to leave, we have to know as soon as possible.”