CallumPar

As I said I just don’t think ‘absolute dud’ would hit their targets. It’s as simple as that. McPake hit his target in getting Dundee promoted. For me, there’s a big difference between a manager that could have done better/has room for improvement and an absolute dud. He finished 2nd in the league, behind only Hearts, who will have had a bigger budget than Dundee. He won promotion in the playoffs. Is that not what his target would have been? Dundee were very inconsistent for the majority of that season and should have been further clear in 2nd/closer to Hearts. But he still hit his objectives. Yes, there are a lot of dud managers out there - I’m well aware of that! I just this assessment seems harsh. Its football though, everyone has (and is entitled to) their own opinions. At the end of the day, I’m glad things didn’t work out for him at Dundee in the end, cause I’m glad he’s here and doing well with us. I’m sure if/when things start going wrong here, you can come and slag me off when I’m calling McPake a dud and demanding he gets sacked!

An ‘absolute dud’ would not have got you promoted. He hit the target of promotion, regardless of how he got there. Your strange posts are just as bad as the ones overhyping his success and it’s strange that you can’t see that. As I’ve said, I think he got the job done, but ultimately, change was needed at Dundee. He’s learned from that and has possibly become a better manager. An ‘absolute dud’ would come into the club, talk about winning the league, then get sacked after no wins in the first 12 games. Conceding about 30 goals in the process. Alternatively, another absolute dud would come in, sign a load of duds and try to pass teams to death, whilst in a relegation battle. Trust me, you’re in the totally wrong place if you’re trying to argue that a manager who hit his targets was an ‘absolute dud’. As I’ve already said, I agree with some of your assessments, but this is a ridiculous thing to say.

Fontaine would be a solid replacement. Although we’d badly miss Fisher’s mobility, Fontaine could easily keep us solid until the end of the season, so secure the title. Can he train FT though? Gone to PT, may have other commitments and has a long injury history. No idea who would be available, whether on loan or permanent. Important that we bring in the right player to replace him, as our success so far has been based on our solid defence, which he was a big part of. Think it’s a good spot for a younger player, like Fisher was, playing in a 3 with someone like Benedictus leading the defence. No chance Dundee have recalled Fisher and don’t plan to play him. It would not benefit anyone to recall him, unless he’s part of the first team plans. Kid’s playing here every week and doing well. Would stall his progress and p*ss him off if they don’t play him. Then he’d leave in the summer without negotiating a new contract.

“Despite being given free rein to build a totally new squad” - that part seems odd to me. If he signed a lot of players at once (and presumably offloaded quite a few?), then it’s hardly a surprise it took time for things to click. Expecting instant success with a new manager and high player turnover is asking a lot. I do agree with your comments on his second season. It wasn’t the undeniable success story that some people seem to paint it as. If you’d been comfortably 2nd and gone up in the playoffs, it would have been, but you weren’t. Getting promotion would have been the target though and he undoubtedly achieved that. Didnt see enough if you in the Premiership to comment. But you did come straight back down, so hard to argue he did well that season. Having said all of that, McPake has been fantastic for us. He has been very honest about learning from mistakes and Dundee and believing that he is now a better manager for it. I think he feels hard done by. Dundee’s board knew they were appointing a rookie manager and didn’t seem to understand that there would be rough patches. Also, I’m really disappointed to lose Fisher. Wish the guy all the best for the future though. Very good player, who will be missed at the club.

Fisher recalled by Dundee. We’re pretty desperate for a new CB now. He’ll be a big loss.

From what I heard (from multiple people) at the time, it is 30%. Due to covid and it’s impact on finances, we accepted a lower upfront fee than the one we rejected in January 2020, on the basis that we got a 30% sell on fee.

No. For what it’s worth, I didn’t think it was a penalty. But it also didn’t look like a dive. Really odd decision to book him for it. Think the referee needs to be re-trained. It’s possible for a player to go down, without it being either a foul or a dive. It’s a contact sport and it happens. There was one run Mochrie went on, 3 Peterhead players tried to take him out, having a good kick at him. Referee ignored them all. Likewise, the number 10 lashing out at Benedictus off the ball - how was that not a straight red? The ball was nowhere near either player and he just seemed to just go for Benedictus in frustration. Ref saw it and booked him? Couldn’t really see what happened at the disallowed goal, so don’t know if he got that right or not.

After 20 games, we’ve now got more clean sheets (12) than goals conceded (11). That’s very impressive. Very comfortable today, with some very good passages of play. If Todd had scored that chance in the second half, that would have been an excellent goal. He’s wasted in a deeper role. Need to keep Hamilton in the team and let Todd charge forward.

Decent attacking performance from us. Some really good bits of play and some very good goals scores. For the fourth goal, I thought Mahon fired a ball in, Todorov flicked it goalwards, keeper/defender got there and it was trundling along the line before O’Hara tapped it in. But nobody else seems to have seen it that way. Magon and KRH looked decent/lively when they came on. Wighton, Mochrie and Todd were excellent today and having the wing backs pushing up, with Hamilton and Chalmers defending the wings worked very well. Few ropey moments in defence in the second half, but never seemed to be in too much trouble. Peterhead were horrendous. Worst team I’ve seen us play all season.

Just came to share that. Anyone travelling from outwith Dunfermline, probably worth coming off at Pitreavie, traffic will build up on the roads around Halbeath.

Thanks. Hadn’t realised Scotland were playing. Makes a bit more sense now though.

Any idea of the reasoning behind this? Seems like a really odd kick off time.

This has improved my opinion of McPake. I will definitely be happy if Levein and Malpas remain nowhere near this club.

Hadn’t seen this until you mentioned it. I’ll never understand why grown men actually @ people on Twitter to slag them off/abuse them, based on what football team they played for/managed. A lot of people involved in football have good things to say about McPake as a person. He probably didn’t need to reply to these tweets, but when someone’s accusing you of trying to end another player’s career, I can imagine it would be hard not to. Football fans trying to belittle the career of a professional footballer and now manager is always an odd move. “What a terrible career you’ve had” - man who has never played any level of competitive football. We had some weirdo ‘fan’ tweeting him, slagging off our style of play last month. Top of the league and some guy went out of their way a few times to tell him he needs to change it cause it’s not good enough…

Can we bring back Josh Falkingham for this, to make the game interesting? Peterhead’s first half meltdown/attempted murder is about the only thing I remember from games against them. Assuming that won’t happen, I’d take any kind of win. But it would be nice to do it with a bit of comfort. Don’t see much reason to change the system from last week. Breen in for Comrie (if fit), but no other changes required for this one. Keep Hamilton in front of the back 3, allowing MacDonald and Edwards to effectively play as wingers.

Mahon played well and was involved in our second goal when he made his debut v Peterhead. KRH came on that day and looked terrible. Since then, KRH has offered much more for the team. Mahon also came on as a late sub away to Clyde and looked ok, without doing much. Then at home to Clyde, he was very disappointing. As noted above, he seemed to be trying too hard to impress. But he was far from the only player that was poor that day and nobody else could have complained about being taken off at HT. Got to trust McPake on this one. If he thinks Mahon can be useful in the second half of the season, I’m happy to trust him. McPake has (presumably) seen him before signing him and seen him in training every day since he arrived. So he’s in a much better position to judge than any of us.

Think whoever updates social media tries to guess the formation/shape - like we’re trying to do on here. They certainly won’t be told how we’re lining up. It’s listed in the wrong order/formation on a semi-regular basis, due to the fact they’re guessing. We definitely need defensive cover though. Particularly at full back - and we’ll need another CB, if we’re sticking with the back 3 (which seems to be the case). edit to add: on Saturday, Twitter listed the team as if it was a 4-4-2, but we played a 3-5-2.

Could be wrong, but think the team was: Mehmet Macdonald, Benedictus, Comrie, Edwards Todd, Hamilton, Chalmers O’Hara, Wighton, McCann Just going from memory, so could have one or two players wrong. Had a quick look at the tweet, then went back to check and to see if subs were announced and it was gone.

Noticed we put the team up then deleted it. Seemed obvious game was off when that happened. Probably not a bad thing. We’ll get Breen back and maybe bring in a couple of new players before it can be played. O’Hara was meant to start. He’ll be very disappointed. One player that really could have done with the game time.

Not sure what McGinn would have added to our team. He’d add ‘experience’ but I can’t see who he’d get a game ahead of. Would rather see us bring in someone like Agyeman, who would offer a different threat and he’d be someone we could develop and make money from selling on. I do think adding some experience would be good. But has to be someone who’d also add something to the team with their ability too.

Watched highlights and we should have been out of sight first half. MacDonald looks our best creative player. Great throw from Mehmet and a fantastic run. Riding two challenges from men trying to take him out. Great ball to Wighton, who finished it very well. Noticed MacDonald and Edwards seemed to be very advanced throughout the game. Perhaps having Hamilton protecting the back 3 gives the wing backs more freedom to get forward? Thats our 8th clean sheet in 10 away games now. Only Montrose and Kelty scored against us on our travels. 3 clean sheets in 9 home games. Mehmet earned his clean sheet yesterday with that late save. Seem to be better on plastic pitches - also think opposition have to play more attacking at home. Think it’s credit to Edinburgh that MacDonald and Hamilton both started the game. They have barely started, other than Falkirk games. Think McPake sees them as ‘big game’ players.

To be fair, you’re far from the only team our defence has been solid against. 11 clean sheets in our 19 games so far. Falkirk have the 2nd best defence in the league, but have conceded over double the number of goals we have. The fact Edinburgh have scored 42 goals and none in the 3 games against us makes it more frustrating we gave away 2 goals each to Clyde and Peterhead and dropped points to them at East End. 20% of Peterhead’s goals came in a 5 minute period at East End. Absolutely mental, particularly given how solid our defence has generally been. We’re generally a well organised team, that will cause problems with the ball and be frustrating for the opposition when we don’t have it. It’s what’s got us where we are. If we keep up what we’ve been doing, we’ll win the league. An injury to someone like Benedictus would be very problematic though - but every team would struggle with the loss of a key player. Nobody at this level has great depth.

Think you’re really missing the issue with the standing area at FC Edinburgh. The big issue is that it is NOT pitch side. In August, you were anywhere between 20-40 yards from being pitch side. There are also multiple obstacles in between (equipment stores, dugouts), so there are large areas of the pitch that you can’t see. I know there’s talk of a new standing area - we’ll see what that’s like. But, unless they’ve got rid of the equipment stores, there’ll not be much room to stand behind the goals. Really need to get fans closer to the pitch on the side opposite the stand. In line with dugouts would be perfect and massively improve the experience for away fans.

Bit harsh on Benedictus. Somebody should probably let the likes of Messi know that they’re too old to wear football kits as well.

Yeah. From what I heard, the relationship with Joma is dead. Two sides to every story, but apparently the feeling at the club was that we didn’t get the same service that we used to. Will be good to get a fresh start and hopefully some new ideas. Will be very disappointing if we don’t get bespoke kits anymore though. We didn’t plan for a third kit this season, but Joma refused to produce/provide anymore home or away tops after first batch sold out and gave us a rubbish catalogue third kit instead. Of course, both parties knew the deal was up and wouldn’t be renewed before we requested more tops, so it’s possibly not a great surprise that they weren’t very accommodating. But it seems like very poor customer service anyway - particularly since the contract with Joma doesn’t expire until June. Fans of other clubs probably better to ask about quality of other suppliers, but Macron kits always looked quite decent. Hopefully we don’t go for some sort of Nike/Adidas catalogue kit, that will be worn by Sunday league teams.