All things Dundee FC

[Ludo*1]

1 hour ago, Robin.Hood said:

Forget what I think , do you genuinely believe this over the course of the season? Not the course of last few months. I'm not one to go back to look at posts but have you felt this way all season with Mcpake or were you one of many who wanted him gone before December? 

Finishing second yes was a minimum.... the facts are there. But in the manner we achieved this was brutal. Has been brutal for the majority of the season. If he had a clue how to manage we may have challenged hearts with the disposal of players he has. 

I'm black and white on this with Mcpake. He has had 2 seasons to build a team to get us out the league which he has had mega backing. Now is his time to get us out the league. 4 games so its achievable. 

I suppose like you and every other c**t on here don't think it really matters what is said as I don't expect the board to sack him regardless if we go up or not.

The show must go on.

I still want him gone - don't get me wrong. That's why I've said I don't think he's our future and don't think he's a great manager, but if he's hitting the KPIs as it were then I think it'd be wrong to punt him.

Totally agree with many things you say, but the end result was him getting us where we expected to be and as long as we don't disgrace ourselves in the play-offs then he should get the chance to continue.

[Ludo*1]

Gary Irvine is Forfar's new permanent manager.

[D TOTAL]

36 minutes ago, Yenitit said:

Not buying that sorry. Our finishing that day was horrendous. Thankfully Bonnyrigg missed a sitter that day or they would’ve been out of sight. 
 

Are you defending that display that day?

Yes and no, like I say we kept the ball well and thoroughly dominated the game any other day would have been 10 goals, but your correct in that specific day in general  they couldn’t hit the side of a barn door never mind the back of the net, BUT that guy weir I think was in Devine form that day

[D TOTAL]

4 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

Gary Irvine is Forfar's new permanent manager.

Good luck to him and them, I reckon he’ll be a good gaffer especially if docherty is there to guide him along for a little while

[stu2910]

Not sure I understand how this season could be classed as brutal. We had a few draws that should have been wins, 1 horrendous result at Tynecastle and 1 result that was fine but could have been bad against Bonnyrigg. In the cups, we lost to the 3rd best team in the country and to the team with a better than decent chance of completing an astonishing cup double, both by 1-0.

We only lost 6 games in 27 though (8 if scaled up for a full season) with 2 of those being away to Hearts who only failed to win 3 home games. The last time we were better than that in the 2nd tier was the Deefiant season in 10/11.

We’ve scored 49 goals this season, scaled up that’s 65. That’s a more than 50% improvement on last season. I can’t find the tables for 98/99 to 04/05 in the SPL, but assuming we didn’t manage it in that time, the last time we achieved 65 goals was in 94/95!

Obviously our defensive stats have been pretty poor to counter this, and drawing a third of our games this season has been frustrating, but it’s not like we’ve been suffering endless 0-0s or single goal games. In reality we’ve been 2 or 3 defensive players away from a very strong team, while in recent years most people would struggle to name 3 they wanted to keep.

Most people agreed with the concept of a far reduced turnover of players and managers to keep a bit of consistency for a change. If this is as bad as it’s going to get with a still relatively inexperienced manager then I’ll take that.

[Robin.Hood]

45 minutes ago, stu2910 said:

Not sure I understand how this season could be classed as brutal. 
Obviously our defensive stats have been pretty poor to counter this, and drawing a third of our games this season has been frustrating, but it’s not like we’ve been suffering endless 0-0s or single goal games. In reality we’ve been 2 or 3 defensive players away from a very strong team, while in recent years most people would struggle to name 3 they wanted to keep.

Most people agreed with the concept of a far reduced turnover of players and managers to keep a bit of consistency for a change. If this is as bad as it’s going to get with a still relatively inexperienced manager then I’ll take that.

Defence record is bad

Goalkeeper issue was bad 

We have strikers who are not scoring much...

Our top goalscorer is ?

You take this season for what is it and believe we have did well ? We achieved second place by the last game of the season with a budget far superior to Raith Rovers.

And you think we should stick with the inexperienced manager and just keep throwing more money at him ? 

Should mcpake still have been in a job come December? Or were you the only person who didn't believe this ?

Come end of the play offs we will be able to judge it all alot better.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Robin.Hood

[stu2910]

Defence record is bad
Goalkeeper issue was bad 
We have strikers who are not scoring much...
Our top goalscorer is ?
You take this season for what is it and believe we have did well ? We achieved second place by the last game of the season with a budget far superior to Raith Rovers.
And you think we should stick with the inexperienced manager and just keep throwing more money at him ? 
Should mcpake still have been in a job come December? Or were you the only person who didn't believe this ?
Come end of the play offs we will be able to judge it all alot better.

Yes.

Yes.

I couldn’t care less if it was 49 own goals as long as we are scoring.

Sow or Cummings. If so, both strikers. For what it’s worth, our top 3 scorers are all strikers with 23 between them. Last year, our top 3 were again all strikers, with 21 between them.

I didn’t say we’ve done well, but to suggest it’s been a terrible season is clearly nonsense.

In 13/14, we won the league by Letheren’s finger nail when we had by far the biggest budget in the league. Was that season a failure?

There is certainly a limit on how long you stick with McPake, but you simply can’t sack someone for finishing exactly where we expected him to. Sometimes continuity can lead to success, just as change can.

Debatable. Couldn’t have had too many complaints if he’d gone, but I’d be impressed if any replacement had gained us a better finish.

We will, but again if we make the final and have only lost out to Hearts and a team from a higher division then he’s hardly had a sack-worthy season.

[Dee Bliss]

1 hour ago, stu2910 said:

Not sure I understand how this season could be classed as brutal. We had a few draws that should have been wins, 1 horrendous result at Tynecastle and 1 result that was fine but could have been bad against Bonnyrigg. In the cups, we lost to the 3rd best team in the country and to the team with a better than decent chance of completing an astonishing cup double, both by 1-0.

We only lost 6 games in 27 though (8 if scaled up for a full season) with 2 of those being away to Hearts who only failed to win 3 home games. The last time we were better than that in the 2nd tier was the Deefiant season in 10/11.

We’ve scored 49 goals this season, scaled up that’s 65. That’s a more than 50% improvement on last season. I can’t find the tables for 98/99 to 04/05 in the SPL, but assuming we didn’t manage it in that time, the last time we achieved 65 goals was in 94/95!

Obviously our defensive stats have been pretty poor to counter this, and drawing a third of our games this season has been frustrating, but it’s not like we’ve been suffering endless 0-0s or single goal games. In reality we’ve been 2 or 3 defensive players away from a very strong team, while in recent years most people would struggle to name 3 they wanted to keep.

Most people agreed with the concept of a far reduced turnover of players and managers to keep a bit of consistency for a change. If this is as bad as it’s going to get with a still relatively inexperienced manager then I’ll take that.

Depends what your expectations are for our club. We could be here all day discussing the tactics, my particular favourite is basically abandoning the left hand side of the park that got exposed time and again which an amateur manager would try and expose, the in-game tactical changes and substitutions, playing players out of position who have transformed the side going back into their natural position, the stumbling upon formations only due to injuries and loan moves falling through, dropping a player after being our best player the week before and not playing him again for weeks, bringing a player in out of the blue from nowhere for an import game and never playing him again, the run of results from January 9th to the start of March and his starting 11 containing players who cost us points time and again. 
 

We were that bad 4 of our starting 11 had to be changed by mid October. That’s brutal. Thank f**k for Keyes and Nelms constant backing. 
 

The day I accept this season up to the start of March is acceptable is the day I give up to be honest. As I said right at the start it depends on what your expectations are.

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Yenitit

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

Good to read both sides of the argument.

[stu2910]

Depends what your expectations are for our club. We could be here all day discussing the tactics, my particular favourite is basically abandoning the left hand side of the park that got exposed time and again which an amateur manager would try and expose, the in-game tactical changes and substitutions, playing players out of position who have transformed the side going back into their natural position, the stumbling upon formations only due to injuries and loan moves falling through, dropping a player after being our best player the week before and not playing him again for weeks, bringing a player in out of the blue from nowhere for an import game and never playing him again, the run of results from January 9th to the start of March and his starting 11 containing players who cost us points time and again. 
 
We were that bad 4 of our starting 11 had to be changed by mid October. That’s brutal. Thank f**k for Keyes and Nelms constant backing. 
 
The day I accept this season up to the start of March is acceptable is the day I give up to be honest. As I said right at the start it depends on what your expectations are.
 

I can’t argue with a lot of that, but we still got the results we needed.

In terms of the in-game changes, some of them I refuse to blame McPake for. Taking Adam off at 3-0 up against Dunfermline with 12 mins to play makes perfect sense and even if Adam had switched sides so it was 10 v 12, we should still be seeing that out. If the players couldn’t handle that situation that’s their fault.

[Robin.Hood]

2 minutes ago, stu2910 said:

Debatable. Couldn’t have had too many complaints if he’d gone, but I’d be impressed if any replacement had gained us a better finish.
 

So you did want him gone ? Yet an inexperienced manager you surely would have gave the benefit of doubt? I don't know anyone who wanted Mcpake beyond December. It came to the point every game we were playing we all just presumed we were going to get beat. We have a little run in February/ march and it's job done. Do you not get the fear if the miracle happens say and we get promoted and we start the season in February we may be bottom of the table. He has did it for 2 seasons so why change? He clearly didn't learn from last season.

Brutal up until December ? 2 good months and the season is meh? 

It's frustrating as I believe if we had a better manager with the same players we would have potentially challenged against Hearts. Regardless of what happens in the playoffs it scares me to see who he will bring in as f**k knows how he will manage them.

[Robin.Hood]

1 minute ago, stu2910 said:

In terms of the in-game changes, some of them I refuse to blame McPake for. 

Yer at the wind up. Some of the changes have been awful and whoever he swaps into the game or he picks is solely the managers fault. It was like tombola every week. We have had a good run to the end of the season so hopefully that sees us over the line and he gets us promoted. 

[Dee Bliss]

11 minutes ago, stu2910 said:

I can’t argue with a lot of that, but we still got the results we needed.

In terms of the in-game changes, some of them I refuse to blame McPake for. Taking Adam off at 3-0 up against Dunfermline with 12 mins to play makes perfect sense and even if Adam had switched sides so it was 10 v 12, we should still be seeing that out. If the players couldn’t handle that situation that’s their fault.

Yeah I agree about the Dunfermline game. That should’ve been seen out regardless of the changes. Was it done too early tho and was it entirely necessary? I hope for the playoffs he’s noticed our best form of defence is to continue attacking teams and not sitting back soaking up pressure because we aren’t good enough to do that imo. 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Yenitit

[Dee Bliss]

8 minutes ago, Robin.Hood said:

Yer at the wind up. Some of the changes have been awful and whoever he swaps into the game or he picks is solely the managers fault. It was like tombola every week. We have had a good run to the end of the season so hopefully that sees us over the line and he gets us promoted. 

I’ve read elsewhere we’ve dropped 14 points to the bottom 3 and obviously lost the league by 12. I’ve not checked but If that stat is correct then if we don’t go up that is unforgivable. 

[Robin.Hood]

1 minute ago, Yenitit said:

I’ve read elsewhere we’ve dropped 14 points to the bottom 3 and obviously lost the league by 12. I’ve not checked but If that stat is correct then if we don’t go up that is unforgivable. 

We all find stats that will suit everyone.

However what nobody can say is , not one of us wanted Mcpake beyond December. People saying he is inexperienced or how can you sack someone so quick etc.  Them facts don't change. So you want someone to lose there job but soon as two months worth of points they say how can you sack someone for just getting into second.

Football eh... love it

 

[stu2910]

So you did want him gone ? Yet an inexperienced manager you surely would have gave the benefit of doubt? I don't know anyone who wanted Mcpake beyond December. It came to the point every game we were playing we all just presumed we were going to get beat. We have a little run in February/ march and it's job done. Do you not get the fear if the miracle happens say and we get promoted and we start the season in February we may be bottom of the table. He has did it for 2 seasons so why change? He clearly didn't learn from last season.
Brutal up until December ? 2 good months and the season is meh? 
It's frustrating as I believe if we had a better manager with the same players we would have potentially challenged against Hearts. Regardless of what happens in the playoffs it scares me to see who he will bring in as f**k knows how he will manage them.

Didn’t say I wanted him gone. Just that from that point I didn’t see another manager (or at least one we would be likely to get) achieving much more. Given the way that last season ended, it seemed fair that he was given a full season and whatever you think of it, he finished 2nd.

We may have been closer to Dunfermline than Hearts, but frankly, we are much more similar in size to them than Hearts. It’s easy to think otherwise given that there are only a couple of clubs between Dundee and Hearts in terms of size and budget but averages attendances from last year tell you all you need to know.

Hearts: 16,751
Dundee: 5,277 - 32% that of Hearts
Dunfermline: 4,152 - 79% that of Dundee

And for comparison, Morton would be the closest to 32% of our size on 1,607. Realistically no one would expect them to finish above us this season.

Shocks happen, but they are shocks for a reason.

[stu2910]

Yer at the wind up. Some of the changes have been awful and whoever he swaps into the game or he picks is solely the managers fault. It was like tombola every week. We have had a good run to the end of the season so hopefully that sees us over the line and he gets us promoted. 

I said some I can’t blame him for. You say some have been awful and I’d agree. How does that make me at the wind up?

[stu2910]

I’ve read elsewhere we’ve dropped 14 points to the bottom 3 and obviously lost the league by 12. I’ve not checked but If that stat is correct then if we don’t go up that is unforgivable. 

Weird stat if true. Wonder if it’s an attitude problem or a tactical one against teams more likely to sit in.

[Robin.Hood]

10 minutes ago, stu2910 said:

Didn’t say I wanted him gone. 

First person that I know of who genuinely wanted to keep Mcpake beyond December. 

Mental but there we go. 

 

Our crowd size I like this sort of conversation. As usually when I sit in the main stand I have a wee section more or less to myself. When we were in top flight this wasn't the case.... Have dunfermline been backed as much as what we have regarding money ? I'm sure Dunfermline got rid of there whole team and started again ,( I could be talking rubbish ) 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Robin.Hood

[stu2910]

First person that I know of who genuinely wanted to keep Mcpake beyond December. 
Mental but there we go. 

I always tend to be more lenient than most. More of my leaning towards keeping him was based on continuity than anything else, along with the fact that the youths seem to be getting more of a chance which has been great to see, although it’s hard to know if that’s the Strachan influence or just good timing really.

I’ll admit I don’t see McPake being here in 2 years time, with even the end of next season being a slim chance.