Still Early Season .... But If Dfc Can Comfortably Avoid The Play-Offs...

[Gedee]

Would that be good enough for you this Season ..... Or is your aim still the Top Six ?

I would never say, as a fan, manager or player,  dinnae worry aboot hitting the Top Six.

But realistically, I could accept this season, were this not to happen. & as the season

progresses if we avoid the play-offs I think I could be OK with that. Although I would not

want to spend now until the end hovering around the danger area. Oh aye .. and I would

definitely want to beat "them" Especially if in doing so, it helped them go doon, doon   

[chomp my root]

While I want us to finish as high as we can anywhere midtable would be acceptable to me. I would see finishing as 10th as disappointing but acceptable, second season syndrome and all that.

[Cobra]

I was hopeful of a push for top four this season but with Thomson not being fit and the summer signings failing to compensate for the loss of Thomson, I just want to get the points on the board to stay safe then maybe push for top six again.

[sneddee]

would love to finish in the top 6 again plus the extra cash you get. but would be just happy

staying in this league!

[Derry Family]

Due to very poor signings that have failed to improve our defence and midfield I would bite your hand off for 10th and pray that we get it right ghost summer seen 8 or so players are out of contract.

The Thomson injury is a smoke screen for poor digging in Meggat Holt Ross Low and the lack of a competent CM CH and winger.

[Derry Family]

Duplicate..😌

Edited 9 December 2015 by Derry Family

[Cobra]

I don't think Holt, Ross and Low are bad players. I just thinking they're proving ineffective for us just now. The team lacks balance and a fit Thomson would go a long way to putting that right.

[Gedee]

The overall results and performances this season has, I think, made many of us forget about the idea of the top six. At least at this time.

And to be honest, I don't find it too difficult to accept this. The feeling of stress and disappointment is, thinking, that there may yet be a

real posibility, that we could have a fight for survival to avoid relegation.  Maybe there is not.  But I do think some posters (including me)

are genuinely worried this might happen. And this concern shows up no' surprisingly through some o the more depressing posts on TDB.

[barkblue]

I'd think it would be OK if we can finish ninth or above, however I'll be disappointed if we finish below seventh.

Where we are in the league, we have to see fifth as a real possibility. Higher than that looks beyond us now.

All dependent on form of course but we need to get back on track soon or we may well be looking at a worse scenario.

[valleyboy]

Anything but top six would IMO be a failure, we brought in many players in the summerto improve our team, if we don't finish at least sixth, then it is less successful than last season, and that's failure in my eyes

[Deestruction]

In just over a weeks time we will be half way through the campaign.

We're currently on the slide to doing a Hibs and need to fix that (with a string of good quality results and convincing performances) before the Christmas schedule or we are deep in the mire.

Having built a solid team last season with a formation that he found worked, and stuck with it, PH was challenged with getting the formation right this season, keeping it constant and improving on areas of weakness, while fixing problem areas.  He failed miserably.

It was evident all through last season that we needed a "hatchet"/break down player to protect our defence, which he felt didn't need improving.  He then replaced a workhorse in Jim McAllister with Nick Ross who's been ineffectual at best, and Nicky Low who he has so much confidence in that he has barely played any time in his natural position.  By not finding the balance in CM he's ruined all the good work he done last year by finding a holding player in McGowan and a creative player in GGH to counter-balance each other.

Every midfield need 3 types of players in the modern gamel ball winners, ball players and an enforcer who dictates the style/pace of the game.

We currently have no ball winners, except for McGowan who isn't enough of a presence to win the ball from most players due to his sleight size.

We have 1 ball player who has only started just over half of our league games this season in Harkins.

And we have no enforcer as he's injured literally half the time.

Due to this, I feel our aims have been adjusted from Top 6 to 7-9th if we are being realistic, which is highly disappointing.  We should hav continued on our upward trajectory, alas we made a tit of it, and must rebuild again come the summer.

[Cobra]

Alex Ferguson finished second in his first full season at Man Utd, 11th in his second season and 13th in his third season (just five points above relegation). Luckily for Fergie, the Man Utd board had patience and appreciated it takes time to build success at a club. 

 

At Dens, Bob Shankly took Dundee to fourth in his first season, tenth in his second season and the title in his third. If attitudes were like they are now back then, he wouldn't have won the title because he would have been sacked and labelled a failure because of a disappointing second season.

 

Dundee fans are no different to any other set of fans I suppose. There has to be signs of progress at all times or the manager is no longer wanted. Unfortunately, with that environment there's little incentive for managers to worry about youth and putting a long-term plan into place because they're always a few bad results from the sack.

Edited 9 December 2015 by Cobra