Barry Smith will forever be held in the highest regard by Dundee fans for all he achieved as a player and manager at the club but Dark Blues skipper Gavin Rae is expecting no favours from his good pal this weekend.
Smith is now in charge of Saturday’s opponents Alloa, who are desperate to secure the points they need to ensure they retain their place in the Championship.
Dundee, of course, hope they will be up in the Premiership next season, although their title destiny is now out of their own hands following last week’s defeat at Morton.
And Rae has warned his team-mates that Smith will have his players well prepared and raring to go.
Rae said: “It will be a tough match as Barry will have Alloa well organised and up for the game. Barry was a very good player for Dundee and the same as a manager.
“He’ll be wanting to win like any other game and we’ll be doing exactly the same. He’s a great professional and that’s just the way it is in football.”
Rae admitted that the Dundee players simply cannot afford to reflect on what might have been at Morton last week, when they spurned a whole host of scoring opportunities, only to lose out to a sucker punch Dougie Imrie goal.
Instead, the skipper insists they have to ensure there are no further slip-ups in the remaining two games as they look to increase the pressure on the new league leaders, Hamilton.
Rae said: “There’s nothing we can do about the Morton game now. It’s frustrating but we have to wipe it from our memories.
“We didn’t play badly. We had a lot of chances and on another day we would have taken them and won the match.
“But that’s football for you and all we can do now is crack on to the next two games and make sure we win both of them.
“There’s nothing else we can do now apart from trying to take it to the final match of the season. We have to try to keep the pressure on the league leaders.
“We’ll see how they handle it. They have a tough game on Saturday (at Dumbarton) and so have we.“ We’ll see what happens. But hopefully we can capitalise on any mistakes which are made.”