James McPake reckons Dundee can’t be blamed for the collapse of reconstruction.
The Dens Park boss knows his chief executive John Nelms did all he could to get it on the agenda.
It was Dundee’s controversial vote that sparked various attempts at league revamping before the SPFL clubs finally kicked it via Monday’s vote.
McPake said: “Of course, everything John does is for the benefit of Dundee Football Club and Tim as well.
“Whatever he was trying to achieve from the reconstruction discussion, and I know it wasn’t always going to be set in stone, but he felt it was for the greater good of Scottish football.
“I can only really talk about the work I’ve seen John and Tim (Keyes, owner) do at Dundee. I was never part of the conversations so it’s nothing to do with me the way the club votes or what’s happened since.
“Should I be disappointed for him? It’s not for me to say really.
“They try to do the best thing they can, whatever situation we’re in, whether we’re in the Premiership or we’re in a crisis.
“They want to do the best thing for Dundee and also for wider Scottish football.
“What he tried to do was what he believed was in the best interests of the game.
“Everybody wants something from Scottish football, Hearts wanted to stay in the Premiership and rightly so. I can see why they wanted to do that.”
McPake knows the Championship will now kick off in October over a shortened 27 game season. His aim is promotion although he accepts Hearts will go in as heavy favourites.
He admitted: “They’ll come down as favourites and with an expectancy that they’re going to do what they did the last time and run away with the league.
“That’s fine. It doesn’t concern me who’s in our league or who we’re playing against right now.
“All my focus at the minute is on Dundee. We need to make sure over a 27-game season we’re at it and we’re strong.
“They’ll be favourites because and will come down with a massive budget but we’ve seen budgets don’t always win you leagues.“There’s also my connections to Hibs – I reckon I get more stick off Hearts fans than I do Dundee United fans!
“For me, it’s just another team in the league we’re going to play three times.
“Hearts will be a threat, as will Ayr United, Inverness, Dunfermline and the others.
“We found that out the hard way last season with it taking us until March 10 to get above Ayr in the league and Inverness were still ahead of us.
“Our next aim was catching them so to just look at Hearts would be madness for me.”
