Jon McCracken dismisses Rangers 'free hit' theory as he tells Dundee fans the next target

Jon McCracken has warned that Dundee are on the up and now have St Mirren and European football in their sights.

The Dark Blues have already booked their top six place but there is no chance of Tony Docherty’s side putting away the tools. The newly-promoted side showed that as they kicked on and took a well-deserved midweek point off Rangers to move within two points of the fifth placed Buddies. The keeper said: “The next target would be the team above us, which is St Mirren.

“That is two points. That is our next target to get ahead of them. I think we are well within our rights to believe we can do that. Hopefully we can show people we can do it. A lot of people were aiming it at us that this (Rangers’ game) was a free hit but that was never the case from us. We have new targets now we are top six and that performance will show we are not going to down tools and just be happy with being top six. We have new targets we want to achieve.”

This is the Taysiders’ first season back in the top-flight and McCracken believes they have shown they deserve to be there. Dundee open up in the split with home games against Celtic and St Mirren.

He stated: “We have always believed we are a good team. It is good that the league table shows it. We believe it and it is there for everybody to see that we are a top six team.

“It gives us freedom in terms of we have retained our top-flight status. That was always our objective coming in to keep that.

“Now we have secured that by getting the top six and it gives the boys confidence. The league table doesn’t lie and we have proved we should be a top six team over the course of the season. That (Rangers') performance just shows that. It was good and we will build on that.”

Dundee have