All things Dundee FC

[johnnydun]

I'm not to disheartened by tonights result strangely.

We competed well going forward once Sow was off, Forster, Hamilton and Sow need binned, but I think this has all been covered.

[RossBFaeDundee]

The simple fact is that no other team in the league can score like Hearts can. First 2 goals were very avoidable, 3rd was a stupid freak penalty (tends to happen on us in 6-2 losses it seems), the 4th and 5th were unsaveable, and the 6th was all because the team had gave up. 4-3-1-2 (either with Gowser as the 1 with Dorrans in the 3, or Dorrans as the 1 with Byrne/Anderson in the 3) and a new keeper and we should be a decent opponent against every other team.

[Ludo*1]

I was debating with a poster on the Dundee forum, but I think it lays bare my thoughts on last night and McPake as a whole right now. Sorry for the repost and bits that don't quite make sense due to being a reply to someone:

Let's say we finish in the play-offs - Would you trust McPake to gain us promotion through that sort of knock-out system?

Let's say you do - We'd never punt a manager after we've been promoted so we give him a chance to build us again, would you trust McPake to have us surviving in the top flight?

As I say, I love McPake and ordinarily I'd say it's batshit mental to punt a manager after 1 league game (And that must mean something from the poster that was labelled as Jocky, Barry Smith's and Hartley lovers after my defending of them when everyone else wanted them sacked), but last nights game highlighted the exact same weaknesses we showed on day one of last season. The same weak goalkeeper, the same piss poor CH and the same imbalancing issues. This time, he has a years worth of experience yet still starts with the glaring weaknesses in the squad of last season and if we use the Berra example of him sorting the defence out, he's  done one of two things:

1. He's thought that Lee Ashcroft is a suitable replacement for Christoph Berra and felt he could guide the likes of Forster through the game despite a mountain of evidence that Ashcroft isn't that type of defender and he's another that like Forster needs guidance.

2.  He's just ignored it and hoped for the best.

If you and I, ordinary fans can see that, why hasn't a football manager that is likely to be getting paid four figures per week and had 2 year in the job now not able to see it?

That's not even getting onto the Jack Hamilton debate.

The singular defence for Hamilton this season was that he might be good without a baying crowd behind him. Ignoring the idea that a goalkeeper in the 2nd tier of Scottish football can't handle a negative crowd - the fact that McPake saw fit to drop Hamilton twice last season and still go into this one with him as his first choice shows incredibly weak management. Even if McPake has been looking for a keeper, the fact that the position hasn't been addressed by the first league game in October is a disgrace and there's the argument that Ferrie has a lot of potential and will be our number 1 in the future, but he's now 22, and deemed still not ready to start ahead of Hamilton. Then, finally, there's the argument that we have 2 keepers on our books and we're in a pandemic so we'll just need to go with one of those 2 - It was McPake that handed Ferrie a deal. If at 22, Ferrie is not ready to displace a keeper the quality of Jack Hamilton, then he'll never be ready and that is yet another blotch against McPake.

I love McPake's passion. I want him to succeed. He's given blood, sweat, tears and a functioning kneecap to Dundee, but he's shown me less than any Dundee manager except utter dross like Jim McIntyre and Alan Kernaghan. The problems that existed the day of his first full season of management were the exact same issues that caused us to concede so many last night.

Edited October 17, 2020 by Ludo*1

[RossBFaeDundee]

And I'd teased my co-worker rotten when Liverpool got beat 7-2... I'm going to get it sent right back to me on Tuesday. 

[Dunning1874]

2 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

Same with Forster, have we had a CH that's as rancid as he's been? Granted, he had a decent 2 month spell beside Berra and shown that he can be the 'brute' at the back provided he has a partner that can guide him through a game step by step (Which lets be honest, shouldn't be required at the lowest levels of professional football).

Did you not have to suffer Stuart McCluskey for a season?

[Ludo*1]

5 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

Did you not have to suffer Stuart McCluskey for a season?

Funnily enough, when I was composing the post he was one of the contenders I was thinking about. He only played for us 14 times though. Tonight was Forster's 25th appearance.

McCluskey played for statistically the worst Dundee side ever (By finishing position) but the likes of Forster, Joel Kitamirike, Davide Grassi and the ilk are cracking contenders.

Dominic Shimmin another, but for different reasons (Wage thievery!)

Edited October 17, 2020 by Ludo*1

[Ludo*1]

Jim Duffy & Barry Smith are the management duo at Dumbarton you say?

[Derry Alli]

I have a wonderful story about McCluskey. The team were in the gym and he started ripping into a youth player who was cleaning up and benched something like 80kg then started flexing in A's face. He went up to 100kg and acting like Billy Bigshot before claiming A had pipecleaner arms and offering to "double your wage" if he could match his 100kg bench. The youth done it and cleared it. Mr McCluskey flew into a rage asking "who the f**k do you think you are?" 

McCluskey never paid his debt. Some of the rest of the squad at the time all pitched in and McCluskey was left on the periphery being hounded for weeks for being a shitebag. 

The youth never made it at Dens but now makes a fucking fortune working in stadiums all over Europe. 

Thanks for taking the time to read my Stuart McCluskey is a shitehouse story. Have a nice weekend. 

Edited October 17, 2020 by Mr. Alli

[Dee Man]

58 minutes ago, Mr. Alli said:

I have a wonderful story about McCluskey. The team were in the gym and he started ripping into a youth player who was cleaning up and benched something like 80kg then started flexing in A's face. He went up to 100kg and acting like Billy Bigshot before claiming A had pipecleaner arms and offering to "double your wage" if he could match his 100kg bench. The youth done it and cleared it. Mr McCluskey flew into a rage asking "who the f**k do you think you are?" 

McCluskey never paid his debt. Some of the rest of the squad at the time all pitched in and McCluskey was left on the periphery being hounded for weeks for being a shitebag. 

The youth never made it at Dens but now makes a fucking fortune working in stadiums all over Europe. 

Thanks for taking the time to read my Stuart McCluskey is a shitehouse story. Have a nice weekend. 

I have literally no recollection of this guy whatsoever. Did he play many games?

[Derry Alli]

7 minutes ago, Dee Man said:

I have literally no recollection of this guy whatsoever. Did he play many games?

Played just after admin 1. Was a fairly shite RB/CB. 

[Dee Man]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Alli said:

Played just after admin 1. Was a fairly shite RB/CB. 

Looked up his profile and I don't even recognise his face. I'm going to have to ask about to see if I was in a coma that year. 

[AlanPartridge]

If we are stuck with Kerr,Hamilton and Forster this season (which it looks like we are)we are in big trouble.

One positive was Alofabi, he looked lively when he came on.

[Fifespud]

Looked up his profile and I don't even recognise his face. I'm going to have to ask about to see if I was in a coma that year. 

Same here. I thought folk were making him up for a moment.
We must have had some sort of PDS incident where we’ve just blanked it all out for self preservation purposes.

I’m now obsessed by how player A makes a fortune in stadiums now. Is he a Chippendale? I’ve got to know what he does.

[Derry Alli]

5 minutes ago, Fifespud said:

I’m now obsessed by how player A makes a fortune in stadiums now. Is he a Chippendale? I’ve got to know what he does.

 

Floodlights. 

[hk blues]

10 hours ago, Dipped Flake said:

You reap what you sow,

Can't you count?

[Benjamin_Nevis]

7 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

I was debating with a poster on the Dundee forum, but I think it lays bare my thoughts on last night and McPake as a whole right now. Sorry for the repost and bits that don't quite make sense due to being a reply to someone:

Let's say we finish in the play-offs - Would you trust McPake to gain us promotion through that sort of knock-out system?

Let's say you do - We'd never punt a manager after we've been promoted so we give him a chance to build us again, would you trust McPake to have us surviving in the top flight?

As I say, I love McPake and ordinarily I'd say it's batshit mental to punt a manager after 1 league game (And that must mean something from the poster that was labelled as Jocky, Barry Smith's and Hartley lovers after my defending of them when everyone else wanted them sacked), but last nights game highlighted the exact same weaknesses we showed on day one of last season. The same weak goalkeeper, the same piss poor CH and the same imbalancing issues. This time, he has a years worth of experience yet still starts with the glaring weaknesses in the squad of last season and if we use the Berra example of him sorting the defence out, he's  done one of two things:

1. He's thought that Lee Ashcroft is a suitable replacement for Christoph Berra and felt he could guide the likes of Forster through the game despite a mountain of evidence that Ashcroft isn't that type of defender and he's another that like Forster needs guidance.

2.  He's just ignored it and hoped for the best.

If you and I, ordinary fans can see that, why hasn't a football manager that is likely to be getting paid four figures per week and had 2 year in the job now not able to see it?

That's not even getting onto the Jack Hamilton debate.

The singular defence for Hamilton this season was that he might be good without a baying crowd behind him. Ignoring the idea that a goalkeeper in the 2nd tier of Scottish football can't handle a negative crowd - the fact that McPake saw fit to drop Hamilton twice last season and still go into this one with him as his first choice shows incredibly weak management. Even if McPake has been looking for a keeper, the fact that the position hasn't been addressed by the first league game in October is a disgrace and there's the argument that Ferrie has a lot of potential and will be our number 1 in the future, but he's now 22, and deemed still not ready to start ahead of Hamilton. Then, finally, there's the argument that we have 2 keepers on our books and we're in a pandemic so we'll just need to go with one of those 2 - It was McPake that handed Ferrie a deal. If at 22, Ferrie is not ready to displace a keeper the quality of Jack Hamilton, then he'll never be ready and that is yet another blotch against McPake.

I love McPake's passion. I want him to succeed. He's given blood, sweat, tears and a functioning kneecap to Dundee, but he's shown me less than any Dundee manager except utter dross like Jim McIntyre and Alan Kernaghan. The problems that existed the day of his first full season of management were the exact same issues that caused us to concede so many last night.

i think that's a perfectly fair summary and echoes many of my thoughts on McPake. I wouldn't see it as binning him after one game either - there was an entire season of dross, and failing to learn from mistakes last year. The point about the play-offs is also extremely valid. Say we scrape 3rd, even if we somehow got through 6 play-off games in spite of McPake tactical ineptitude, the following season in the Prem would be absolutely brutal, and as usual Nelms wouldn't act until it was far too late. 

I genuinely don't understand what he sees in Jack Hamilton. I mean it's not like he should need to feel like he needs to stick by him, he was a McCann signing. The very fact that we've had this guy for something like 2 fucking years when he plainly isn't up to it and there's been no serious attempt to replace him as No1 is frankly mental and added to an ever-growing catalogue of tactical and personnel errors (playing Kano in a totally unsuitable role for months being the main one) it become increasingly hard to make a case for him to stick around to further derail our promotion chances. 

Nelms made (yet another) massive error in regards to a managerial appointment and that is where the biggest problem of all lies. He failed to punt Hartley at the right time, then we have the whole ridiculous McCann situation, trying to appoint McIntyre but failing to realise why Dodds would be met with such opposition, and then appointing McPake, a player with absolutely no experience of management. It really is hopeless stuff and simply a continuation of decades of mismanagement (albeit of a different kind) at boardroom level. It really shouldn't be that difficult to appoint a manager to do a steady job, build a reasonable squad and at least try to stabilise us in the top tier. Jocky was on verge of doing that in the late 90s and we've never looked liked being a remotely consistent top tier side since. 

 

[Dunning1874]

4 hours ago, Mr. Alli said:

I have a wonderful story about McCluskey. The team were in the gym and he started ripping into a youth player who was cleaning up and benched something like 80kg then started flexing in A's face. He went up to 100kg and acting like Billy Bigshot before claiming A had pipecleaner arms and offering to "double your wage" if he could match his 100kg bench. The youth done it and cleared it. Mr McCluskey flew into a rage asking "who the f**k do you think you are?" 

McCluskey never paid his debt. Some of the rest of the squad at the time all pitched in and McCluskey was left on the periphery being hounded for weeks for being a shitebag. 

The youth never made it at Dens but now makes a fucking fortune working in stadiums all over Europe. 

Thanks for taking the time to read my Stuart McCluskey is a shitehouse story. Have a nice weekend. 

It was ridiculous that he ended up at a newly relegated Dundee side in the first place considering he'd been dreadful for us in the third tier the previous season, but Alan Kernaghan.

I'm led to believe he was the instigator of a massive fallout at training on the day that John McCormack was sacked by Morton, refusing to take part at one point because he claimed an injury then just fucking off to his car and leaving when McCormack told him to get on with it.

Later on that season, while still playing every week, he asked Jim McInally for time off because he'd been offered a trial with a club in the Middle East and wanted to have a shot at it. McInally agreed to let him go - good, it got him out of the team - but it then emerged that there was no trial. He just wanted a wee jaunt to Dubai to play in some Old Firm Legends charity game. He was never seen at Cappielow again.

[mychurch]

Only seen the goals and the first 2 are bad, but the rest are explainable. Hamilton maybe should have done better for the first, but it’s the defenders who should take the blame. The striker is very close to the goal when he gets the shot away and that chance should be scored at least 8 out 10 times. 2nd is from distance, but there are a lot of players in the way and it did come through a Hearts players leg - looks to me much worse than it was.  Great finishes for 4 and 5. You
 

Our first will be the goal of the season. Wow. 

As the EPL has shown, results in empty stadiums can be very different to what you expect with a crowd. Hopefully we benefit from this in subsequent games. 

A team is always a work in motion and given the realities of Covid and the effect on income, I don’t think it’s realistic for us to have gotten rid of all the players that have been suggested here. The mistake may have been in handing out longer term deals, but once they are in place, we have to at least honour some of them. I’d be for giving the manger until Cmas at least and even then, if our youth players are starting to make an impact, that might be more important long term than the placing this year - Hearts are going to win the league and getting into the playoff is what our real goal should be. 
 

2nd AFL semi is about to begin. It’s not football, but the 2nd best ball sport to watch. Hopefully somebody is showing it in the UK. I look out Geelong, who are playing.  Similar size town to Dundee, but a different in every way.  

 

Edited October 17, 2020 by mychurch

[Peadar BigDinnerO'Driscoll]

Same ol shite as last year from McFuckSake - probably shithouse  a few narrow wins at home with this 5-3-2 nonsense.

A good manager would have us challenging Hearts. Sad to say it's not gonna happen with this guy.

Need to see a lot more from Dorrans too. He could learn a bit about graft and leadership from Charlie.

[Louis Litt]

The persistence with Jack Hamilton is all the more annoying when you see the number of players we've signed and money we've wasted on literally all other aspects of the team.

That St Mirren howler was well over 2 years ago now and I dunno if I'm being harsh but I can't once remember walking away from a game and thinking he'd saved us a point(s).