Mark McGhee attended Dundee clash to support James McPake alongside Gordon Strachan before managerial change

Mark McGhee has revealed he went to a Dundee game to support James McPake – before taking his job as gaffer.

McGhee was named the Dens Park boss on Thursday, the day after McPake was emptied from the hot seat. He admits that long-time friend Gordon Strachan gave him a ‘leg up’ for the job in his role as Dundee’s technical director.

But he’s adamant the former Scotland boss WON’T have an influence on how he manages the team or Dundee’s recruitment while he’s in charge.

And McGhee says they both attended a match against St Mirren in October to offer moral support to McPake after he had suffered a 5-0 home loss to Ross County.

He said: “Gordon has no input to the first team at Dundee.

Get all the latest Sports news sent straight to your Inbox every day by signing up to our newsletter.

We cover every morsel of information regarding your favourite club in the form of articles, videos and podcasts.

The newsletter will arrive every day at 12pm, giving you a round up of the best stories we've covered that in the last 24 hours.

To sign up, simply enter your email address into the link here.

And if you aren't already, make sure you join the conversation over on our Facebook groups and Record Sport Instagram.

“Even with James, that’s how it worked. Of course, he was there to be a mentor if James wanted to ask for a bit of advice.

“But he will have no real part in the first team.

“He only went to a couple of Dundee games and I went with him to one at a time when James was under a bit of pressure.

“Gordon knew there weren’t many of Dundee’s directors going and said: ‘Come on, we’ll go and give him a bit of moral support’. And we did.

“While, yes, he is part of the club - he’s not part of the first team and he’s not involved in