Paul Hartley admits the start of the 2016/17 campaign has been a "challenging period" for him as manager of Dundee.

The Dens Park side haven't won a game since the opening day of the league season when they beat Ross County 3-1.

They won only two League Cup fixtures prior to that and have since gone on a run of six games without a victory.

Hartley's side welcome in-from Celtic to Tayside on Saturday but the boss, who played for the Parkhead club for two-and-a-half years, is hopeful he can turn their fortunes around.

"It's challenging times being a manager, you're always challenged on results and if they don't go your way you have to accept the criticism," he said. "It's a challenging period but hopefully we can come through it.

"We've always had little periods of poor results and that's happened here where we haven't won for a few matches. But you just have to work your way out of it.

"You have to keep working hard, believe in what you're trying to do and have everybody stick together. We're seeing that in training.

"We had a a couple of bad results and a really bad performance last week but it's how you work your way through that.

"We've still to hit top form. We've been ok in spells but we don't have enough points and we're not hiding away from the fact we've got to be better."