Neil McCann hopes his Dundee players digested assessment of Hearts display

Dundee manager Neil McCann admits he will only know if his stark analysis of his players resonated when they kick-off against Partick Thistle on Saturday.

McCann described his team's performance as absolutely shocking'' and ajoke'' after they lost 2-0 to Hearts on Tuesday.

After a poor start, Dundee had chances after the 30th-minute opener and were in the game until Christophe Berra netted 13 minutes from time, but McCann did not spare his players from stinging public criticism afterwards.

When asked if he thought it had hit home, the Dundee boss said: I don't know, you like to think it has. We will find out on Saturday.

They generally sat quietly and listened to what I had to say, which was good. I don't think they had any arguments anyway to come back to what I was saying.

There was an element of anger. You can get frustrated when you don't get a result and think you deserved it.

You get angry when you don't get a level of performance that you expect and what you have been getting.

And there's no reason other than we didn't have enough players demanding that level, and that's what we must do.''

Dundee had taken seven points from three games before consecutive defeats to Aberdeen and Hearts saw them slip to just one point and one place above Ladbrokes Premiership bottom side Thistle.

McCann said: It's a big game because it comes on the back of a very, very poor performance and result.

It's a huge game in respect that it gives us an opportunity to bounce back and put a few wrongs right.

I think we have a responsibility to the club first of all and then the fans and ourselves to put on a much better performance, because it was nowhere near it.''

Midfielder Mark O'Hara accepted McCann's criticism ahead of the Dens Park clash.

It was well justified,'' he said.We watched some things back and it was very poor.

Against Aberdeen we didn't win but we played well off the back of two good results. It was a good chance to get some momentum going and we let ourselves down and we let the fans down.

Hopefully we will put it right and get the fans back onside. We need to get back to how we were playing before that game on Tuesday.'