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11 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

Graham Gartland having a pop at the club. I understand where he's coming from - I'd be bitter too if I were him - but he's a bit deluded.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/4537350/neil-mccann-graham-gartland-dundee/

I doubt they'd have done worse than Jimmy Mac, but I still we'd get relegated either way. Our team was a disaster waiting to happen for a couple of years. Finally seems like some stability is on the cards.

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1 minute ago, RawB93 said:

Copy and paste for those of us that refuse to click on a Sun link please, Ludo.

GRAHAM GARTLAND uprooted his family from Ireland to kick-start his coaching dream — only to be left out in the cold by Dundee and looking for work.

The former St Johnstone defender was appointed as Neil McCann’s No 2 at Dens in the summer of 2017 and moved the rest of the Gartland clan back to Scotland.

But after putting blood, sweat and tears into his role, he and McCann were axed last October — ten days after a defeat to Kilmarnock — with the club just a point from safety.

Former Ross County boss Jim McIntyre was brought in, but despite a squad overhaul they were relegated — finishing the season 11 points behind second-bottom St Mirren.

By the final game of the campaign McIntyre too had been given the boot, with rookie James McPake given the job of leading the club back into the top flight.

But former assistant boss Gartland reckons he and McCann never got the credit they deserved and reckons their plan COULD have saved the Dark Blues from the drop.

He said: “I think how the club sacked Neil and myself was really poor.

“It seemed to be an ongoing thing for days. We took training on Monday and Tuesday and then they pulled the plug on us.

“Neil really cared about the football club and so did I.

“We were there from 8am through until at least 5pm every day and we were at all the reserve games and as many Under-18 matches as we could — even when they were on a Friday night.

“We tried to involve everyone at the club and Neil’s vision was to take it up a level.

“Looking back we know what we could tweak to make things better.

“It certainly wasn’t through a lack of fight or desire on our part. We wanted a fighting spirit in our team.

“Sometimes myself and Neil would get carried away with that on the sidelines but that’s how we are.

“Neil ticked all the boxes for what the club were looking for. He cared about the club, he wanted to bring a culture in and we had a good dressing room as well.

“We had plans in place where it would push us even higher up the league.

“We only got eight league games before we were sacked and then they had all that upheaval and they still got relegated"

“The thing is I moved the family over to Scotland and now I am left doing nothing.

“I did some work with the PFA at the exit trials and I really enjoyed working with the players. Now I am just looking to get back involved in the game.

“Would I change anything? Not really. I would make a few tweaks but in general I would do the same again.

“It was the timing of it that was disappointing.

“I’m not bitter about it and I still wish the club well. There are still a lot of good people at the club.”

Gartland and McCann had the vision of trying to play a passing game to bring them success.

But the Irishman reckons some people were desperate to stick the boot into the pair — especially as they struggled at the beginning of the new season.

He added: “Neil is one of those progressive managers who wants to do things the right way and make his players better.

“We put on extra sessions and we always did doubles on a Tuesday and Wednesday to try and make the players and the team better

“We wanted the players to buy into that — some of them did and some of them didn’t.

“You want to play football that is good to watch and make the whole product better.

“That is the way we wanted to do it.

“Pundits will say they want to see nice football, we tried to do that and still got stick for it.

“That is the bit I don’t understand.

“You have seen other teams changing the way they are playing and they get praise for it. I don’t get why we didn’t.”

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Sorry for the formatting - and the double post. I reckon we'd have probably went down under McCann/Gartland, but it'd have been much more respectable than it was under McIntyre. That's not much of a compliment. I liked McCann's ideas but he was and is far too stubborn to make it in management. His people skills are to be admired - By that, I mean as a fan, I love a manager that'll take no shit - However, that clearly, just doesn't work in modern day football.

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Anyone uprooting their entire family to move from Ireland to Dundee in a profession where things can go tits up so quickly is fucking nuts tbf. The simple fact is that under both McCann and McIntyre, we were shite, goal-shy and completely gutless. We'd have been relegated by some distance by McCann's side, though maybe not as spectacularly as McIntyre's. Getting binned obviously sucks, however Gartland was an integral part of a set up where getting results was a priority, and failed. Tough shit.

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If I may respond to a couple of his quotes...

Quote

“I’m not bitter about it and I still wish the club well. There are still a lot of good people at the club.”

Absolute utter nonsense, the entire article smacks off bitterness, well Graham, if you and Neil weren't so utterly useless at your jobs, you wouldn't have been sacked. Be it football, retail, medical, transportation etc, employees get sacked all the time for being useless, its part of employment, deal with it.

Quote

“Neil is one of those progressive managers who wants to do things the right way and make his players better.”

This really irritates me. We weren't playing like Barca or Man City, we were always misplacing our passes, aimlessly inept defence, our midfield was pathetic, and our forwards non threatening, and there was no great style in our play. We were terrible to watch, these clowns thought we were great.

They ruined players under them, not improved them. 

These frauds didn't understand the first thing about football, which is winning. You can try and achieve the second, the third, the fourth, but the whole stack of cards collapse unless you win games. 

A manager should manage the team to the best of their abilities, not what he believes they should do, but what they can do. They failed on basic man management, they failed on basic talent recognition. Their tenureship was an unmitigated disaster, a text book case study of what not to do.

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9 hours ago, RossBFaeDundee said:

There'll be a signing today, eh can smell it.

 

(I'm bored and have nothing on on Thursdays rn, please make it so to alleviate my boredom).

You called? 

Is your manager still talking about May btw? ITK guy on our forum says you've zero interest now as Johnson was both cheaper, and considered a better fit.

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1 minute ago, RandomGuy. said:

You called? 

Is your manager still talking about May btw? ITK guy on our forum says you've zero interest now as Johnson was both cheaper, and considered a better fit.

He had a joke about "the two boys from Aberdeen might not get to sign now" after we drew them in the cup. May being one, Wright most likely the other. 

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14 minutes ago, Dele said:

He had a joke about "the two boys from Aberdeen might not get to sign now" after we drew them in the cup. May being one, Wright most likely the other. 

I'd take Wright but I'd scrap signing may completely. We seem to have a decent strike force and Hamilton and the defence have bucked their ideas up. Winning the league and the cup this year.

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11 minutes ago, Crawford said:

I'd take Wright but I'd scrap signing may completely. We seem to have a decent strike force and Hamilton and the defence have bucked their ideas up. Winning the league and the cup this year

May seems to have done a bit of a Shankland , faffing around so much and ending up with nothing - or worse still, ending up at Tannadice!

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3 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

You called? 

Is your manager still talking about May btw? ITK guy on our forum says you've zero interest now as Johnson was both cheaper, and considered a better fit.

He keeps getting asked at every available opportunity and basically just says, 'Our offer is still there'.

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Although it never really worked out for him last season, I believe we’d be a really good fit for Wright if he signed permanently.

 

1) Gets to play consistently at a lower level where he’ll likely be one of the better players in the division.

 

2) He’ll still be on a fairly decent wage, probably the same as he’d be on at Aberdeen as I’m guessing he wasn’t that high paid there due to probably still being classed as a youth player.

 

3) He could still live in Aberdeen and travel to training etc everyday.

 

Come on down Scotty lad.

 

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