Dundee manager James McPake opens up on pre-match Covid-19 havoc

Dundee manager James McPake has opened up on a manic 24 hours of pre-match after former Liverpool and Stoke City man Charlie Adam tested positive for Covid-19.

The Dee came from behind on two occasions to draw 2-2 with Morton, ending a run of defeats but now winless in four. But losing their former Liverpool star to Covid-19 on top of confusion over Liam Fontaine’s ability made things challenging for Dundee, training cancelled on Friday too.

McPake said: “It was a tough 24 hours for us. On Friday Liam Fontaine didn’t think he was playing. We lost one of our most influential players (Adam) through Covid and we have no physio so it’s been tough. On top of that we were told we couldn’t train on Friday.

“I’m not using that as an excuse for our performance because the three games we’ve gone to Cappielow, that’s probably the best we’ve handled them. Who knows if the preparation on Friday would have helped? What didn’t help was not knowing.

“I think it was 11am we got the OK that Fontaine could play and wasn’t a close contact. It was a challenging 24-and-a-bit hours. It was going to happen that we’d be without Charlie. The club have done everything right with the protections and we don’t know where Charlie picked it up.

“He was negative on Tuesday, then tested again Thursday for this Tuesday’s game and got the results on Friday morning and he was positive. We have been hit by Covid before but Friday was different. It was a real challenge and I think the group dealt with it pretty well even though we didn’t get the result we wanted.

“Charlie will be a miss but that’s football, we will have to live without him. He is a big influence on our team but we’ve got a big squad.”

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