Dundee United 2018/2019

[Granny Danger]

I have no idea why Craig Levein feels the need to make such a statement regardless of its merit.

Maybe other managers can start making statements about Levein’s shortcomings.  Like the time he put out a national team without a striker.

 

[MacArab]

 

10 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

I have no idea why Craig Levein feels the need to make such a statement regardless of its merit.

Maybe other managers can start making statements about Levein’s shortcomings.  Like the time he put out a national team without a striker.

 

Absolutely spot on!

I don’t see why Levein has to make the point in the first place, attacking the club who essentially resurrected his management career, and which he left of his own accord in order to further it.

I also do not have an issue with testing young players in different positions; Souttar could have been the new Andy Robertson for all anyone knew; at the time he was certainly not painting the town red at CB. The fact that he  now a settled CB is fine; hindsight is a wonderful thing.

During this ‘tough spell’ for Johnny, this was principally a time when we were fighting for premiership survival and every game was a battle that he really didn’t rise to (like pretty much all of the rest of them at the time tbf).

Emotions and stress are pretty high both at the club and amongst the fan base just now, so I guess the club (which is a bit under siege just now) just felt that they needed to come out with something to defend their position against yet another attack, and also to try to defend our pedigree of producing fine players for the future. Unfortunately, given the utter clusterfuck we have in charge at the moment, and given what has happened over the past few years, fewer Arabs than normal may feel inclined to defend the club.

I still find the statement from Levein pointless and needless thus am a little irritated by it, and don’t think either statement was necessary to be honest

ETA - I will never forgive Levein for the Prague Fiasco; it was an insult to football.

[Elixir]

Heads gone from United with that statement. What has happened to your club in recent years?

You c**ts need to get your act together and get back in the top flight where you belong instead of utter shite like Livingston and Hamilton.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Elixir

[Pull My Strings]

20 minutes ago, Elixir said:

Heads gone from United with that statement. What has happened to your club in recent years?

You c**ts need to get your act together and get back in the top flight where you belong instead of utter shite like Livingston and Hamilton.

That's very sweet.

[Dirty Arab 83]

Heads gone from United with that statement. What has happened to your club in recent years?
You c**ts need to get your act together and get back in the top flight where you belong instead of utter shite like Livingston and Hamilton.

Thank you, if you don't keep correcting us we will never learn.

[Granny Danger]

53 minutes ago, Elixir said:

Heads gone from United with that statement. What has happened to your club in recent years?

You c**ts need to get your act together and get back in the top flight where you belong instead of utter shite like Livingston and Hamilton.

We are where we belong and will continue to be so until we deserve to go up...

 

 

 

 

...or down.  

[dundeeunited83]

Absolute minter of a statement, levein is absolutely correct at what he’s saying, and why are united sticking up for tactics that failed us re mixu playing him rb etc, still nothing about that fucking idiot of a manager, have no idea why we are delaying the inevitable, freak show at tannadice atm

[MacArab]

12 minutes ago, dundeeunited83 said:

Absolute minter of a statement, levein is absolutely correct at what he’s saying, and why are united sticking up for tactics that failed us re mixu playing him rb etc, still nothing about that fucking idiot of a manager, have no idea why we are delaying the inevitable, freak show at tannadice atm

A good example of what I said above;  anger at the current regime at Tannadice clouding opinions of otherwise loyal supporters.

I reckon that  if we were skooshing the league/still in the Premiership, we would all be on here defending the club and telling Levein to go and f**k himself.

Because we are in the position we are in, and MM is defending the indefensible (keeping Laszlo in charge), others feel less inclined to defend the club, (from what I see as a bit of a below the belt blow tbh) which is a bit of a shame Imo.

We are not the only club in history to have played a youngster out of position to see what he can do, and we have a good track record of moving many young players onto bigger and better clubs, and it is a shame Levein feels the need to kick us again, when we are already on the deck.

Again, it’s easy to say Souttar was always a Centre Back after the fact that he has now proven himself as a solid Centre Back, a number of years later. 

[Shadow Play]

2 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

I have no idea why Craig Levein feels the need to make such a statement regardless of its merit....

 

2 hours ago, MacArab said:

 

Absolutely spot on!

I don’t see why Levein has to make the point in the first place, attacking the club who essentially resurrected his management career.......

Does Levein come across as someone who would miss an opportunity to self promote?  By having a go at United he has increased the coverage his comments have received.  I’m afraid United’s statement has only added to the publicity around this.

A dignified silence by United would have been the better option IMHO.  I thought United would have learned that after their embarrassing statement with regards to the Cifti biting incident.

[Dee Man]

37 minutes ago, Shadow Play said:

 

Does Levein come across as someone who would miss an opportunity to self promote?  By having a go at United he has increased the coverage his comments have received.  I’m afraid United’s statement has only added to the publicity around this.

A dignified silence by United would have been the better option IMHO.  I thought United would have learned that after their embarrassing statement with regards to the Cifti biting incident.

It wasn't a bite, it was lipstick. 

[stumigoo]

I'm disappointed that United have responded to Levein. Given the current mood amongst the fans and the need for as much positivity at the club as possible it was an ill advised piece of bad/unnecessary PR for the club. Levein is revelling in his current role as pantomime villain/banter merchant so he feels like he can say what he wants, when he wants but United should have just ignored it.

[Mark Connolly]

I'm on the fence here.

On the one hand, I don't really see the need to respond to Levein when he is clearly trolling like f**k to try and make himself out to look better, while on the other, his accusation that we "nearly ruined" Souttar is strong enough that it does merit a response.

If he was accused of ruining or nearly ruining a player's career, he'd be a seething mess, and rightly so.

[Granny Danger]

I never liked Souttar much when he was at United and hadn’t seen much of him since he left, but I thought he was excellent in the two recent Scotland games.

[Dundee Hibernian]

Levein's comments were not on behalf of Hearts, United put their contribution out in an official capacity. There's the difference.

 

If United thought they should make a response, they could have used a friendly hack to state 'A Dundee United source said'. 

 

It's a distraction from the Csaba shambles.

[AsimButtHitsASix]

Have Sevco released a statement yet tho'?

[mishtergrolsch]

Coz Levein has never played a player out of position...

Good ane.

Kovacevic, brought in as a CH who was at RB almost the whole time. Funnily enough because he was too scared to header the ball too.

Playing Wilkie up front v St Johnstone.

Playing Sean Dillon everywhere.

David "Jobbypants" Robertson at right midfield alot too.

Ironically, it was his mate Housty that played Souttar at right back and i think he played left back once, for part of a game after a sending off or something? And he was rubbish for alot of his time here too. Especially after all the good players were gone.

I like Levein and would have him back in a flash but hes taken a pointless and strange swipe at a club that helped put him back in the shop window and got him the Scotland job. Where he 460'd.

Also, tbf the club has a right to respond, even though its a bit cringe they've bitten. 

Also -

19 minutes ago, Dundee Hibernian said:

It's a distraction from the Csaba shambles.

 

[PartyFears2]

Craig Levein has slated more clubs today (1) than trophies he has won in his entire footballing career (0)

[arab_joe]

On 9/17/2018 at 11:06, mishtergrolsch said:

So lets just leave an utterly useless clown in charge then?

If the alternative is letting our Chairman choose a replacement... it is a coin toss: it could get better; or it could get worse.  But it would definitely be expensive (the amount of money our club has wasted sacking people is frightening) and sadly we don't have money to burn.

Bearing in mind the fact that we just allowed the manager free reign to build up a squad from (almost) scratch, I think it is fair to give him games to gel the team. We are 3 points off the top of the division, so I remain unconvinced that now would be a good time to sack the manager - and any such sacking would send a negative message to potential suitors. We were rash to sack McKinnon, in my eyes, and lessons have to be learnt from that.

On 9/17/2018 at 20:02, UnitedLoon63 said:

Shabba out and Neilson in I’d say

What makes you think that Robbie Neilson would be a success? 

He won the Championship with Hearts, but that is a completely different proposition. And he was a disaster at MK Dons.

5 hours ago, mishtergrolsch said:

Kovacevic, brought in as a CH who was at RB almost the whole time. Funnily enough because he was too scared to header the ball too.

Not that it is relevant to this current saga, but I must admit moving Kovacevic to right-back was one of Levein's shrewdest moves.  I remember being bemused when we were lining up with four centre-backs, but it was seriously effective.  At a time when everyone else was employing wing-backs we suddenly became hard to beat; could do with more of the same these days!

[Granny Danger]

14 minutes ago, arab_joe said:

 

Bearing in mind the fact that we just allowed the manager free reign to build up a squad from (almost) scratch, I think it is fair to give him games to gel the team. We are 3 points off the top of the division, so I remain unconvinced that now would be a good time to sack the manager - and any such sacking would send a negative message to potential suitors. We were rash to sack McKinnon, in my eyes, and lessons have to be learnt from that.

  

There are so many things that are wrong in that one paragraph.

The 3 points from the top is so misleading.  It is obvious that Laszlo’s tactics are awful.  On Saturday he claimed post-match that playing the full backs narrow worked!  It was a disaster.

What suitors?  Only a die hard Arab with (lots of) money to burn would put money into United.

Getting rid of McKinnon was the right thing to do.  Sadly, as with McNamara, it was done too late rather than too soon.  Just because Ray’s successor is completely useless doesn’t change how poor his own management of the team was.

 

[arab_joe]

39 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

The 3 points from the top is so misleading.  It is obvious that Laszlo’s tactics are awful.

What suitors?  Only a die hard Arab with (lots of) money to burn would put money into United.

The 3 points from the top may well be misleading to those who have watched each of United's games this season, but I meant potential applicants for the manager's role, should Laszlo be sacked.   It will not be misleading to them.  Suitors will be put off by the fact that we are quickly becoming a "hire and fire club" and the fact that we sack managers who are only 3 points off the top of the league in September - what were we expecting with a completely new squad?

I don't disagree that the tactics are poor and that we should be doing better; I'm just not convinced that we have the Chairman in place to improve the situation... in my two decades watching United, we have almost always brought in terrible managers at significant cost.