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It's the summer of 2017. Neil McCann had been busy in the transfer market preparing to put his own mark on this Dundee team following his appointment as our permanent manager but there was one thing missing - a prolific no.9 to spearhead our attack. Following the loss of Kane Hemmings and Greg Stewart, Dundee had suffered massively at the top end of the park so every single Dundee fan were waiting with baited breath to see who he would bring in to become our new saviour. Then came the 'signing emoji’ on the 13th July at precisely 15:49. We all knew it was going to be a striker but who would it be? Could the wild rumour that held no substance at all that Dimitar Berbatov was Dens bound be actually true? Of course it wouldn't, don't be so stupid. Instead it would be announced that unknown Tunisian Sofien Moussa was the new hero in town. With the excitement of seeing this exotic name added to the Dundee squad, it was time for the fans to feverishly check out his scoring credentials. Whatever euphoria we had over Moussa signing quickly evaporated when we found out that he wouldn’t be this acclaimed 30-odd goal a season hotshot but instead, we were left with a player who had amassed 17 goals in 7 years as a football player. But still, we couldn't just judge him on his wiki page so like the good, non-judgemental, football fans that we are, we would wait until we seen him in action before casting our verdict on the striker. Truth be told, first Impressions weren't that bad. He scored a double on his debut against Raith Rovers, nearly face-planting it into the away stand as he jumped on the wall to celebrate and this was followed by a goal against Buckie Thistle and a hat-trick at Cowdenbeath which included an overhead kick. Then the warning signs started to show early on. He was almost non existent in the Dundee Derby in the Betfred League Cup then he found himself coming off the park injured in our opening day defeat to Ross County at Dens after another fruitless shift. He would score what would turn out to be the winning penalty against St Johnstone but a few weeks later he gave every Dundee fan a glimpse of his horrendous decision making that would define him when he attempted a pass back from our halfway line when we were one-nil up against Hearts, only to see it go as far to Kyle Lafferty who would score from his 'assist.’ Luckily for us, we would still go on to win the match but this incident was enough for fans to question if he was up to the task. Moussa would endure a three-month goal drought before he managed to find the back of the net again. These came courtesy of another spot kick, well two in fact during a 3-0 win at Dens against Patrick Thistle. Would he actually kick on after this? Nope. It would as a matter of fact be another two months before he would find the net again and guess what, that was from penalty spot in a 3-2 defeat away to Kilmarnock. By now, it had almost became comical that the man brought in as our main striker had yet to score from open play In the Premiership. Fear not though as that day would come when he scored the equaliser in a 1-1 draw with Hearts at Dens. Yeah, he probably made more contact with the ball with his scrotum than any other body part but he had done it! Whoever was running the official Dundee Twitter page even softly mocked the player, though the tweet was deleted but not before it had been screenshot by jubilant fans. Despite his misgivings, the fans were even more joyous for him than they have been for most players. Maybe we all felt he just needed this to kick-start his career. Maybe it was his glaikit smile that made us all think he was this really nice guy or the most plausible reason would be that we all just genuinely felt sorry on him. A further two goals would come his way, both from open play, in a 2-1 victory over St Johnstone and that would be it for his goal-scoring exploits for 2017/18. Seven Premiership goals was all we got from Moussa, a shockingly bad total for the Tunisian striker, or any striker who wears the No.9 shirt. In fact, he managed to pick up more yellow cards (nine) than goals in the Premiership! I don't think I need to remind the fans of the countless opportunities he passed up along the way because it reached the point that we would be expecting to see Sofien miss a 'sitter or two’ in nearly every game. Tied down on a two-year contract, it was inevitable that McCann would still have him around the following season but thankfully he was able to identified that we needed more ammunition upfront. The thing is, he failed to rectify this correctly and as the new campaign kicked off, Sofien along with new addition Jean Mendy were our duo in attack, which would be more bumbling than dynamic. Fortunately for the fans, appearances would become sparse for Moussa this season and following the sacking of McCann he would eventually released by new manager Jim McIntyre. I doubt many fans produced any tears of the news of his release. His cameo appearance in our League Cup tie defeat against Ayr United which seen him pick up two yellow cards and a red in the space of around ten minutes, was enough for most to say they didn’t want to see him in a Dundee shirt again and even though he would feature after that, it was certainly the beginning of the end. It’s hard to see what Neil McCann did in this player. For someone who’s whole career was spent attacking oppositions defences, putting his faith in someone with Moussa’s record was incredibly amateurish unless he genuinely believed he could turn him into a prolific striker. Whatever the reason, with the amount of chances Moussa had handed to him on a plate, you could argue that Dundee would have finished better off last season if he showed more composure up front and possibly, just possibly, McCann could very well still have been in a job if he continued any scoring exploits. That however is "And if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle" scenario but in all honesty, it would have took a lot more than Moussa banging in the goals and your aunt with baws to have saved him from the sack. So, how would I sum up Sofien Moussa’s time at Dundee? The fact you could make a lengthy compilation of spurned chances that would last much longer than his actual goal compilation would probably do it no doubt. From thinking we were signing Berbatov to landing Sofien Moussa. McCann promised he would become a 'cult figure' at Dens and that's exactly what happened, but all for the wrong reasons.

Twelve goals from open play in Dundee's entire league season to date will tell you where our issues lie. Yes, we concede too many soft goals and no, we don't seem to know how to close a game out but surely the antidote to those ills also comes from the ability to score more goals? I remember The Cobra and The Mongoose, but will anyone ever remember The Moose? Throughout my years following Dundee FC, the mighty Dark Blues have had all manner of animals ply their trade up front for the club. The Cobra and the Mongoose will have anyone who experienced the 80s purring about a dynamic duo who could reduce the top flight’s defences to quivering wrecks with the merest Keith Wright knock down and Tommy Coyne rifling shot. The Mongoose’s next partner started off as everyone’s favourite diminutive Dumbo impressionist, but in the club’s darkest days ‘luggy’ turned out to be something of a snake. Whereas the absolute beast that is Christian Nade lumbered and thundered his way into Dee hearts with gutsy displays and a flicked header that calmed nerves on a Championship winning day crammed with drama, conspiracies and one of the best saves seen at Dens for many a year. The same season, the rather portly and overly bearded Craig Beattie did his best loveable bear impression, as he belied a lack of fitness to snatch a few vital goals. However it’s a certain Moose that has had possibly the most divisive period in a Dundee shirt of any prospective big goal hunter, the undoubtedly big hearted Tunisian loved by some, yet derided by the many. As 2016-17 came to a close, the toothless tiger of Marcus Haber was already rumoured to be on his way out of his Dens Park pen after the loveable but lazy Rory Loy had been the latest fox in the box to look like he had been tired out by those hounding him from the stands (and deservedly so). Therefore surely top of Neil McCann’s big ticket items to draw in the crowds was a hungry poacher who would turn from hunted beast into a ravenous goal snatching animal. Arriving just as the Dundee team headed towards the lion rampant badged home of Raith Rovers, the snipers were already taking aim, the bearded Tunisian’s Wiki stats an early reason for consternation (even if I did read once that Mido had spent a couple of years by the Tay on that ever reliable source of information), but a 21 minute cameo resulted in a debut goal only 13 minutes into Moussa’s Dundee career and instant love from the dark blue travelling support. A dangerous tap dance routine celebration that almost resulted in this new hero landing head first into the second row of away stand seats led to cries of “Moooooooooooooooooooooussssssssssssa!” being heard long into the night – even if a certain Jack Hendry (who? Never heard of him!) actually dug out the League Cup win with a last gasp cheek buster. The Moose’s second goal in as many games came against the plucky minnows of Buckie Thistle, but if his first two thirds of a season for Dundee will be remembered for one thing, it will be the overhead kick that was part of a glorious hat-trick against lowly Cowdenbeath – the part timers however proving to be one of the worst ‘professional’ outfits this Dundee supporter has ever seen. Even then as Central Park emptied and talk of Moussa’s fifth goal in three games began to spread fear across Scottish football, those in attendance were already whispering concerns that much though the goals were flowing, this lad wasn’t really a player. Being kept quiet by a Dundee United defence that was as effective at holding itself together as a three week old baby’s nappy, the signs were there, but so too was the dichotomy of The Moose. Utterly ineffective throughout the ninety minutes, when the ball was placed on the spot for a farcical penalty shoot-out loss that somehow gained us home advantage, Moussa looked calm and assured as he picked his spot. And from there only strikes from twelve yards have been forthcoming (when A-Jay Leitch-Smith wasn’t stealing the ball and missing, of course). Headers have been skewed wide, shots sclaffed at the keeper, fresh air swipes and what look like goal line clearances for the opposition being acted out when it often seemed easier to score - and let’s not even mention the goal gifting halfway-line pass back against Hearts. Don’t get me wrong, his suspiciously offside looking piece of skill by his unsuspecting backside counts as a ‘real’ goal and even those not provided with dark blue shades will admit that Moussa has been robbed of perfectly good ‘goals’ against both Motherwell and Hamilton through the sheer ineptitude of the officials. But is that just bad luck or occurrences symptomatic of a player who simply finds the dark art of scoring goals from open play beyond him? An initially productive looking partnership with AJ-LS seems to have fizzled out into nothing and an on-off chop and change between the equally baffling Haber and The Moose certainly hasn’t helped, but in the end it’s hard to argue with those saying that Moussa simply isn’t good enough. If it wasn’t for the fact we look even worse when he isn’t playing. Without a focal point the rest of Dundee’s attack flounders, runs into each other and barely gets a touch of the ball, and yet when Moussa plays it’s actually him undoing all of his own good work by missing the chances, whether they be half, glaring, or stick ons. He certainly is not a ‘wee, sleekit, cowran, tim’rous beastie’, but this is one Moose that needs to start being more bullish in an around the box. Here’s hoping come season’s end we’re forgetting all about past beasts of old and are instead talking of the sweet taste of M&M’s, Moussa and a new fox in the box in the shape of Simon Murray. If not, there’s a possibility that it won’t be only a Moose getting put down come the last day.