Dundee V Peterhead Sat 20th July 2019

[Mr Sensible]

Let’s get the excuses out the way first

grass looked long, Peterhead were a stuffy stuffy side, missing one of our better players....

But that was poor, how we play one upfront at home to Peterhead is an utter head scratcher, little creativity, and when teams like Peterhead work there backsides off and defend deep then it can be difficult....tempo was poor from the start, they looked the far hungrier side...

biggest plus for me was Hamilton who is getting more confident with every game and the young kid in the middle of the park, beggars belief he is only 16....

To have any chance we need 4/5 players, definitely need more pace in the team, and are crying out for creativity...

Big 13 days for the manager and the club.

[eyeothedug]

29 minutes ago, nemsadzDEE said:

That performance was as bad as the score suggests, absolutely brutal to watch.

No creativity, no one prepared to take risks just safe tippy tappy passing back towards our own goal constantly. 

Robertson was excellent and good to keep another clean sheets but that's where the positives end. 

We really missed Ness who o felt drove us up park last week and played some intelligently forward passes. 

Nelson looked like a lost laddy up front getting bullied by their centre halfs. He was very isolated to be fair and was getting the ball with his back to goal constantly. 

Starrting to get a bit worried as we need 4-5 quality players in or we'll finish in the bottom half of the table. 

Lets hope we get some reinforcements in before Caley next week and show major improvement or it will be a very long season!

We should have played with two strikers. 

Shows you we need to be at full strength to play well. The example is the Raith game. So new players please. 

But the commitment and desire seems to have dipped already which beats me, so early in the season. 

Positives are that we played so well against Raith, that Ness, Byrne and Gowser look excellent together. Also that we haven't conceded any goals and the we look like going through to next round. 

It's different from last season and we just need more quality along the lines of what's been purchased so far. 

Also, Nelson isn't injured yet

Edited 20 July 2019 by eyeothedug

[Dundeefc1783]

36 minutes ago, eyeothedug said:

I think 'unacceptable' relates more to effort and application...hunger, desire to win. It is a big change from the Raith game but at least the defence is solid. 

From where I was standing I didn’t think any of the players application or hunger could be questioned. Second half we were pushing for the win and if it hadn’t been for poor finishing we would have won the game by more than one goal. 

[J_Kitamirike]

Did we have a shot on target?

You're right though, the likes of Stevie May would be a sh*t signing for us and offer us no attacking threat etc...

Hope he goes to United

[8utters]

I think we will find out next Sunday exactly where we are.

A decent performance / result and we should qualify, which would represent a good start to the campaign. With a few key additions we'll be ok.

An embarrassing defeat / performance and the alarm bells will be ringing ahead of the trip to Dunfermline.

[Cobra]

18 minutes ago, Billy Campbell's Ghost said:

What I never get is how come Dees, Hibs, Pars,  and both Saints have struggled against inferior and part time players when if these clubs start pre season roughly at same time, surely the quality will still win over perhaps simliar fitness levels.

25 years ago there was a huge gulf in class between the stronger teams and the teams in the lower leagues. That gap doesn't exist anymore and hard work alone can make life difficult for the likes of Dundee and St Johnstone especially at this time of year when players are lacking sharpness.

I would expect us to comfortably beat Peterhead in the Scottish Cup later in the season because we'd be more fluid and our better players would be harder for them to stop.

[Mr Sensible]

8 minutes ago, Dundeefc1783 said:

From where I was standing I didn’t think any of the players application or hunger could be questioned. Second half we were pushing for the win and if it hadn’t been for poor finishing we would have won the game by more than one goal. 

They had the best chance....

 

[harry94]

22 minutes ago, J_Kitamirike said:

Brutal performance and you can spin it up any way you like but there's no chance we will be challenging United based on that performance today.

We have zero creativity and it is frightening just how short we are on established first team players.

Nelson had a shocker and another poor performance from McDaid. 

The only positives you can take away were the two centre backs , Hamilton and young Robertson who will turn out to be a fine footballer.

I actually thought Curran was decent when he came on too.

 

I think McDaid will wind me up a lot this season!

One thing as well I thought was that although Robertson looks a great player, I really hope someone is putting their arm round his shoulder and giving him a lot of encouragement. I thought that some of his passing looked brilliant but he was maybe a bit nervous to take some risks and probably held himself back from taking a few risks that could have put us in some good areas.

Byrne for me was a bit redundant in that sort of game I thought and probably would have been better off for another forward but I hope we'll see a lot more from him against Inverness.

Agree re Curran and think that Nelson struggled a bit for whatever reasons but maybe didn't get utilised very well with our style of play.

Deffo need a lot more depth. Can't be relying on kids to bail us out.

[WoodStein]

18 minutes ago, Billy Campbell's Ghost said:

What I never get is how come Dees, Hibs, Pars,  and both Saints have struggled against inferior and part time players when if these clubs start pre season roughly at same time, surely the quality will still win over perhaps simliar fitness levels.

It is, on the face of it, illogical, scotty     

One factor I think has some (/a lot of) bearing is that these 'smaller' clubs generally don't have the finance to be making huge changes to their squads window-after-window, as those clubs you mention largely have (Saintees not so much, I think?). They have a nucleus of players who know each other well, a consistent 'system' & setup, and only a minimal turnover. 

Maybe we need to abandon the gap we used to know as 'close season', and just play for 12 months....if we have 24 players, 2 can be on holiday each month through the year....just like most 'real' businesses. [slightly , that last bit, to be clear]

[CW 90+3 02/05/16]

Dundee FC failing to score against, never mind beat Cove Rangers and Peterhead two games on the bounce is completely unacceptable any day of the week any year of our history.

Picking up a bonus point for being better at two part time outfits at penalties does not change this. It merely softens the blow.

The good news is, we have time to strengthen and we simply must. 

Hoping to see at least 4 or 5 signings including two forwards between now and Dunfermline away. 

The current squad is way short of what's required.

[Garageflower]

Was a poor performance.

McDaid hasn't done much to impress me so far and was off the boil today.

Mulligan looked good in patches, turned the defender inside out a couple of times but on another occasion was very clumsy with the ball in the box.

Robertson was the best player on the park and was running our midfield. Was always available for a pass, was strong on the ball despite his size, dug in defensively and his passing and vision was excellent and something we have been missing for a long time with his through balls and switching the ball to the flanks. Most of the chances we had were due to his quick forward passing.

Nelson was marked out of the game

Curran looked good when he came on but I think he should have started the 2nd half and it might have made a difference.

Byrne and McGowan were decent

Back 4 were solid but I wasn't overly impressed with Marshall. He was mostly fine defensively, but looked really slow on the ball and refused to take it past an opposition player.

Hamilton had a good game and kept us in it with 1 v 1 in the 2nd half. Admittedly their attacker should have put it away and it was a poor shot straight at Hamilton, but he did well to make himself big and stand up to it.

Young Cunningham came on ad was ok. I thought he was a striker, but it looked like he was playing right mid.

Bare minimum, we need a quality striker, winger and 3-5 squad players as the only youngster I'm confident we can depend on is Robertson.

Add those signings and I think we will have a strong squad ready to challenge

[gblue]

We must be bad when some of our fans are saying Curran play well