Great to hear that Barry Smith has returned to Dundee as U19's coach. He replaces Paul Ritchie and will also register as a player in January according to the Dundee website. I think this is a great appointment and along with the addition of Ray Farningham yesterday, Jocky is putting together a decent backroom staff and hopefully that will influence the players so as we can charge up the league and be in the running for promotion come the end of the season.

Good to see Barry back, but surely his playing days are long gone.

Not bad for emergency cover, I would think. He'll be a great asset to the club. It seems a lot of emphasis is being put on the youth side of things, and rightly so. We have produced some very very good players in the past, namely Gavin Rae, Lee Wilkie, Steven Milne, Lee Mair, and more recently, Scott Robertson, Kevin McDonald and Paul Dixon. It's the right thing to do.

I'm optimistic for a third place finish this season, but it will be hard to achieve.

He was a wholehearted player but never had much skill, even back then.

He didn't need skill.

He was decent enough for us on loan last season, although he was injury prone and that cut his time with us short eventually. He should be a solid back-up option for you.

Welcome home barry

I think that's a sensible level of expectation. My own opinion is that, despite the look of the current table, there are three sides that are starting to look that bit better than the rest; Saints, Queens and Dunfermline. I think 4th would be ok for Dundee, a good recovery but not spectacular. If they could break into the top three though, that would be a good season all things considered, although clearly third in this league is never a "good" season for Dundee FC.

I'd heard Dundee were going to be ditching their U19s next season as they didn't feel the current group of players had enough first team potential, pretty much as Saints did in the summer past with only one lad getting a new contract.

True, to a word he was, pish. And for Dundee fans to love him so much is laughable, mind you they love Freddie Daquin as well

What a load of patronising rubbish.

He was rank rotten.

Actually, I think that was an honest post. It is going to be very difficult for us to break into the top three. Ofcourse, we still have a long way to go yet, but I doubt the three aforementioned teams will all go on a bad run, while we go on a long unbeaten run. We will find it very difficult, as any week we drop points, we will fall further behind.

As for the U19's, I heard that aswell, but with the arrival of Jocky Scott and ultimately Barry Smith suggests that's an area the club will focus on. I see the club are also broadening their scouting base which can only be good for the future.

Yeah, I didn't really elaborate on what I meant. By ditching the current youngsters (if true) it looks like the club will be starting from scratch again with the youths, which is no bad thing. Our current 17s contains only a handful of players that were with the (successful) U16s last season but the guys in charge have managed to bring in good guys from other senior clubs or from boys clubs and they are doing well in their league after just a few months together as a group. I think a lot of clubs carry lads for much longer than they should and often guys are just making up the numbers, especially where the elite level is concerned and clubs are required to run teams at every age level. Professional clubs shouldn't have an obligation to give guys an opportunity to play football, there are plenty of boys clubs about that would be much better suited for a lot of them. Clubs carrying guys from U13 level through to U19 then releasing them are doing the lads no favours at all.

Yeah, I would agree with that. I think that's the plan, and the example you describe above seems the best way to do it. TBH, I'm not sure why the club have not done that already. It seems our youth structure has been severely neglected in the past few years, but hopefully this is the start of building a decent foundation, becasue let's be honest, the club is not in the best state, and it may be that in a few years time, we will have to rely on our youth players more than ever. I think it's sensible. I love nothing more than seeing a youngster come though the ranks and do well for the team. All in all, I hope this is the way club intend to go about the youth structure, as it seems we are carrying to many players who are not good enough - it's not helping the club and it's not helping them, like you say.

I hope we adopt the same method as Saints current U17's have as it seems the best way.

Hopefully he'll now get his testimonial game. Great our management is mostly men who love the club.

nd Barry Smith tae!

Stevie Campbell will join the coaching staff when his contract with Dundee United runs out at the end of the season when he will be replaced by Bowman. I'm happy with all the changes, I don't think we could have got more Dundee-minded people than we currently have.

Jocky Scott, Ray Farningham, Gordon Wallace, Barry Smith, Stevie Campbell (starting next season).

Five people with Dundee at heart, onwards and upwards...

EDIT: Stevie Campbell wants to come back, will depend on money available.

I thought you would have learned by now.

While we're on the discussion of Dundee Utd employees, I heard that Scott Robertson has a clause in his contract saying that if Dundee get back up to the SPL, then he comes back to Dundee.

Can someone please just clarify that this load of bullshit, is exactly that for the purposes of my very silly Arab friend.

You have some mental health problems or something?

Do you have amnesia? You do realise that all your "exclusives" are pish and made up?

Where did you get this "exclusive"? Is Stevie Campbell going to move to Dundee as a coach when he has the same job at Tannadice, while probably on better terms?

No, no he's not.

I thought he did okay. Had a few bad moments, like giving away a goal on his debut, but overall he did well, brought a bit of calm to the defence with his experience and could pass the ball out of defence, which was a valuable lesson to the rest of our defence that they didn't have to blooter it to kingdom come every time they touched it. A certain Mr McManus would do well to learn from him.

Stevie Campbell will be on a lot more £ at Tannadump, then we are able to offer. The only way I'd reckon we'd see him at Dens was as Manager or Assistant, and both those positions are now full.

Exactly my thinking.

Can you not read?

I said at the END OF THE SEASON when his contract with Dundee United RUNS OUT. He is on £30,000 at Tannadice he will get nowhere near that at Dens but he WANTS TO COME BACK and will join the coaching staff if Dundee can afford another coach.

What have I made up?

The trip was to Malta (before the club said so) - correct.
Alex Rae to be sacked before Morton game - correct.
Jocky Scott be appointed next day - correct.
Darren Young is not injured - correct.
Dave MacKinnion wasn't happy with Rae for panic signing Williams and Pozniak - correct.
Bennett would invest £200,000 (like Brannan did but wants back) - correct.
Reasons for Bennett not taking over - Correct.

Anything that you believe is made up let me know, I'll let you know if it happened or not.

Edgar Davids sitting in Dens - WHO KNOWS

They weren't exactly exclusives though were they.

Hadn't seen them anywhere else on any website prior to posting.

The trip was to Malta - was.
Alex Rae to be sacked before Morton game - was.
Jocky Scott be appointed next day - was.
Darren Young is not injured - I don't know...
Dave MacKinnion wasn't happy with Rae for panic signing Williams and Pozniak - I don't know...
Bennett would invest £200,000 (like Brannan did but wants back) - was.
Reasons for Bennett not taking over - was.

I thought he was fucking rancid for us and was also a fatty fatty boombalatty.

I remember you saying he would be sacked before Ross County at home.

''Before the next home game,'' I believe.

I have to agree that i think the pack will start to split into 3 soon, coming up to xmas, however radford i think it will as you say be 3 teams but i think it wil be 3 of 4:

Saints (however im a bit worried our revival may stutter if we drop a bad point or two in the next few games)
Dunfermline (seem very good at grinding out results at the moment and only injury could halt there bid)
Queens (seem to be the hamilton style team in the league and are extremely difficult to beat at home, they are the garanteed team to be up there come the end of the season)
Livi (with griffiths and/or elliot fit up front they will not have trouble scoriung and with Mackay, Innes and McPake at the back soundnt concede a huige amount, but again injury could halt there titale bid)

Dundee i think will hit form and be just outs die the chasing pack with Partick but it will really be the transition in the summer from average mid-table to title challengers that will be there main problem i think.

Wasn't Dundee's recruitment of Jocky Scott, Farningham & Smith just a cheap option:

Bob Brannan claimed Scott was always his first choice - then why bother contacting Airdrie, Brechin & QotS for permission to speak to their managers (Chisholm was never a realistic option anyway given that he'd signed a 2 year deal & a skint Dundee couldn't have afforded the compensation).
Scott, by his own admission, was desperate for a job back in footbal & therefore wasn't in a position to negotiate a lucrative deal.
Farningham was labouring on a building site & so was glad to get the asst manager's job.
Smith was finished playing in Iceland & would also be glaad to be offered the U19 coaching job.

Therefore all 3 wouldn't have cost Dundee much & the fact they're all 'Dundee minded' is just a gloss to cover the fact that Dundee couldn't afford their first choices - the Chisholm/Billy Dodds scenario was all pie in the sky. Brannan said Kernaghan & Rae saw Dundee as a stepping stone to a bigger club while Scott doesn't - hardly a ringing endorsement of his choice
of manager!
As 1 newspaper said, when Brechin's manager, Michael O'Neill, didn't protest when he was refused permission to speak to Dundee means he didn't see them as a viable step up from his present club & shows how far Dundee have fallen.

Proof?