stu2910

Definitely happier with the players in than those they replaced. Think so far is rate the signings in order: Kamara Hendry Spence Leitch-Smith Deacon Allan Moussa Wolters (which I feel is harsh as I still think he’s a decent player) Can’t comment on the others yet as they haven’t played.

Is it not only 4? County, Hibs and St Johnstone?

Tannadice holds just over 14000 and isn't remotely soulless. This stadium would essentially be the size of Tannadice with a proper stand instead of the Shed. Edit to add that I appreciate Utd get bigger crowds than we do at the moment but not so much that we shouldn't be aiming to grow our fan base to that level and beyond in the near future.

I read in one of the interviews with Nelms that this has been set up in this way, with the separate company buying the land etc, because funnily enough Dundee FC isn't a particularly attractive name to lenders. Suggests to me that it's been done like this purely to get it built and that the long term plan would be to work it back into the club's ownership. The owners main objective when they took over was to build the club back up with the stadium, training facilities, youth academy etc being worth significantly more combined than the club cost them at the time and therefore worth selling.

I'll be sad to leave Dens but can appreciate that a move is the logical choice. The thing I'll actually be most gutted about is our unique rivalry no longer existing. It's one of very few things that makes both clubs stand out.

Think Kamara can and will be a great signing but he is best suited to games that we are expecting to lose. Against the likes of Hearts and Rangers, having his ability to break the play up could be vital. Against the bottom teams though his inability to pass the ball forwards will have some of the moaners around me throwing themselves off the main stand. On second thoughts he has to play these games.

Thought we played quite well and deserved at least a draw. Bolton scored from 2 long balls and didn't really threaten otherwise. Personally though Kamara was our best player, looks a great signing.

Central midfielder, although I think he may have played on the right a couple of times. Certainly not a winger though. Was always steady enough and didn't look out of place but didn't look spectacular at this level. Could come on to be a good league one or championship player though.

In all seriousness, is there actually a potential team name that wouldn't just wind up one side? United is obviously out and Dundee * is always just going to be shortened to Dundee. Even Red Bull Dundee or whatever would have that issue. Tayside FC would just ignore Saints. Discovery Dynamo? Or do you just ignore the area completely and end up with Thistle Rovers?

Dundee V St Mirren/Spartans in the Scottish cup. Could certainly be worse...

This pretty much sums up where I feel some of our problems have been this season in that we have barely managed a settled team. Yordi and El Bak have the potential to be a good pairing but they will need time to work on that. Stewart and Hemmings only worked so fast for us due to their previous time at Cowdenbeath.

I'm well aware that our start has been underwhelming to say the least, but the constant attention on the negative stats can't help. Yes, we have 2 points from 4 home games, not won at home, only won 1 from 6 and have only kept 1 clean sheet. However, we have only failed to score once including scoring in every home game, are unbeaten away from home and are unbeaten against all the teams who are even slightly realistically relegation rivals. Must we improve? Yes. Will we improve? Probably. Are we doomed to relegation? Not remotely close.

Might be a little biased as I never sit in the Bobby Cox stand but can't help thinking it would be better to have the statue outside the stand, far enough away from the road to allow cars to still park at the shop. Would be a great meeting and photo point on match days and allows visiting fans the chance to see it too. We don't have any bronze statues outside Dens, so this is the next best thing!

Think Wighton and El Bak were by far our most creative players but playing them both up front leaves them little opportunity to actually create. Hartley loved the 4-2-3-1 last year but seems to be changing it every week at the moment. Would like to see that come back with the usual defence with McGowan and Hateley in front, O'Hara attacking midfield and Wighton and El Bak either side of either Loy or Yordi.

He said that he was homesick when he first arrived and missed everyone back home. Hardly disrespectful and perfectly understandable for any person moving abroad. He's said that he's settled in now and wants to do well so that's enough for me.

Interview with John Nelms in the Times: John Nelms, the 45-year-old managing director of Dundee, admits that people were uneasy when he showed up as the new co-owner at Dens Park in 2013. The plain fact is, Dundee FC had seen enough dubious cowboys and dream merchants to last a lifetime, some of whom had endangered the very existence of the club. So who was this latest character? The likeable, plainspoken Nelms recalls his early days at Dens. “Everyone was kind of nervous when I came in,” he says. “And I understood why. When I arrived I got some of the ‘we know where your family lives, we know where your kids go to school’ stuff. Thankfully, that is no more. “There was a load of cynicism to overcome. But I appreciated what the fans were going through. They didn’t know me personally: who was this guy, what was he going to do? “That is why we made no big promises. But we said we are going to put a shift in for this club and try to build it up. I am here every day, trying to make it better. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get 100 per cent buy-in from people, but if we keep doing what we are doing, I think they will see we have the best interests of this club at heart.” Nelms might just be winning people round. Together with fellow-American, Tim Keyes, the pair own around 62 per cent of Dundee, via Keyes Capital Investment, and have seen the club grow and thrive in the top flight in Scottish football since their arrival. John Nelms, the 45-year-old managing director of Dundee, admits that people were uneasy when he showed up as the new co-owner at Dens Park in 2013. The plain fact is, Dundee FC had seen enough dubious cowboys and dream merchants to last a lifetime, some of whom had endangered the very existence of the club. So who was this latest character? The likeable, plainspoken Nelms recalls his early days at Dens. “Everyone was kind of nervous when I came in,” he says. “And I understood why. When I arrived I got some of the ‘we know where your family lives, we know where your kids go to school’ stuff. Thankfully, that is no more. “There was a load of cynicism to overcome. But I appreciated what the fans were going through. They didn’t know me personally: who was this guy, what was he going to do? “That is why we made no big promises. But we said we are going to put a shift in for this club and try to build it up. I am here every day, trying to make it better. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get 100 per cent buy-in from people, but if we keep doing what we are doing, I think they will see we have the best interests of this club at heart.” Nelms might just be winning people round. Together with fellow-American, Tim Keyes, the pair own around 62 per cent of Dundee, via Keyes Capital Investment, and have seen the club grow and thrive in the top flight in Scottish football since their arrival. The intriguing question remains: why are Nelms and Keyes at Dens Park? What possible sane reason can there be for American businessmen throwing their money at Scottish football, let alone at the basket case that was recently Dundee FC? “It is a bit of everything: the lifestyle, a bit of love, plus the challenge of taking a struggling club and trying to put business acumen into it and building it up,” says Nelms. “For me, it’s not just the love of football, but a love of this country as well. “When I was young, after being born and raised in the USA, my father got a job fixing missiles to nuclear submarines at Faslane. He worked originally in Missouri, where he was a jet-propulsion engineer, but then headed a team over to Scotland when I was seven years old. We lived in Rhu and I went to school in Helensburgh. “My father died when I was 14, but I’d been back and forth to Scotland a few times since on holiday. I always felt like I’d come back here eventually. And then the opportunity at Dundee came up. “Back in 2013 we had a family meeting with my kids — then aged 13 and 11 — before we embarked on this. It was, ‘right, guys, dad is thinking of doing this … is this something you’d want to do?’ And the answer was, ‘yes, absolutely.’ They were fully into it. So here I am.” Nelms’ sworn ambition is to do right by Dundee, build the club up, make it a success and a proud part of the Tayside community. He emits such warmth and feeling and determination for the club that you are left thinking, ‘if this guy is another chancer, he is a damn fine actor.’ The growing feeling in Jute City, after early doubts, is that Nelms is the real deal. “I think having a good work ethic is important,” he says. “I always say to my kids, ‘you can’t have million-pound dreams with a minimum-wage work ethic.’ So I am working all the time on Dundee. “The club has no debt. We promised the fans that we wouldn’t take debt with us. The club is self-sufficient and we run to a strict budget. In fact only yesterday a guy said to me, ‘you’re the tightest man in Scotland with an American accent’. I took it as a compliment. I was trying to conclude an absolutely tight deal for the club. “If we are going to do something that is outwith our budget, then we’ll put the money in first. The money comes from our own pockets — from Keyes Capital. Everything is well thought out. If something is going to cost X, and if we think it is a good investment, and will help us achieve what we are trying to achieve at Dundee, then we make a decision to put the money in.” But surely, I asked Nelms, you’re not just throwing money into the club? Nelms and his investors cannot possibly be in this to be down on the deal. Can Keyes Capital reclaim the money, which they occasionally pump into the club, down the line? “No … or at least not until we sold the business,” Nelms replied. “It is a long, patient process. This is a business and we want to grow the business. Put it this way — and these are not real numbers, by the way — but if what we took over was a one million pound business, then we think that what we took over is worth a lot more now. And we believe, as we build it, it will be worth a lot more again. At the end of the day, someone might not want to take it off us, and we might never want to sell it. So it could be for generations that we hang on to this club, I don’t know. “We don’t have an exit strategy. We might sell it in ten years’ time, I don’t know. Or they might plant me in the ground when I’m still here, who knows?” There has been recent consternation at the thought of Nelms and Keyes demolishing Dens Park and moving Dundee to a new site near Camperdown on the west side of the city. He happily explains the furore. “Tim and I are deepening our roots in Scotland. We want to develop and do more things here on the business side. Are we looking at a new stadium? Yes, we are looking to see if building a new stadium might be right and sustainable for this club. “This piece of land came up for sale, and it is a good piece of land, so we purchased it [for a reputed £1.2 million]. The club didn’t purchase it —Tim and I purchased it. It is one of those where, we want to do what’s best for the club, and if putting a stadium there is best for the club, then we’ll try to do that. “Look, I love it here at Dens Park — absolutely. We would love to upgrade Dens, but I don’t know that we can; it would be almost impossible. “We are behind the times in this stadium, so we have to keep looking forward. The club has been here for 100 years. Now we have to think of the next 100 years.” Nelms spent much of yesterday concluding the deal to sell striker Greg Stewart to Birmingham City. Today at lunchtime Rangers arrive at Dens Park. He is an engaging character, now utterly immersed in the saga of Dundee. “When we came here, we had plans, and we are well ahead of where we thought we’d be,” he says. “But the real answer is, we’ll never be satisfied. We’ll always be looking ahead to what is next, to what we can do to make Dundee that bit better.”

Don't understand the arguments saying the capacity should be smaller because our crowds usually are. Yes even in a good season we would be lucky to get 7000 at an average game but what's the point in not having the capacity when you do need it? Derby matches, promotion or relegation matches, big cup matches and who knows maybe even European nights could attract bigger crowds than our current capacity. Celtic park is half empty a lot of the time but they do fill it and when they do its one of the best in the world. Cinemas only ever have half a dozen people in a screen 90% of the time but they don't have screens that only hold 10 people. Restaurants don't open with 2 tables because they could only fill 30 on Friday and Saturday nights.

My first choice would always be to stay at Dens and redevelop it. It's a large enough area of land that there isn't as much restriction as other clubs have and you have both the history and the quirkiness of the Derbies. If we had to move though, we must make sure it's not a Lego stadium, no design, no atmosphere, no fun, no point. A smaller version of Tynecastle with the steep sides holding about 15,000 and a safe standing section behind the whole of one end would be fine. Other main concern (pubs don't make a difference to me although I appreciate that's a big part of it for a lot of people) is traffic. In its current location, the streets around the ground are more than capable of handling the traffic that even the biggest matches throw up. But if we move out to Camperdown, more people will drive to matches and there's only one single lane access road, with only part of that being exclusively for the stadium assuming they use the road at the bag of the cinema and ice rink. The other part of the road and a small roundabout will be dealing with traffic for the stadium, cinema, ice arena and park and that just isn't going to work. I'm sure when the parking runs out everyone will be delighted that people start parking on the grass in the park too. Not entirely against it if the stadium was to be as I described but I'd rather stay at Dens and upgrade.

I'm in no way trying to defend the team but having been at the East Fife and Dumbarton games, I have been at least encouraged by every new signing and think that O'Hara and Williams have the potential to be great signings. It's worth noting that in any other group competition that doesn't have the penalty shootout, we would be going in to the Forfar match knowing a win would be enough for us to win the group providing Peterhead don't win against a team in a higher division than them. We are also not the only top team to have struggled with the time of year whether people like to acknowledge it or not: Ayr 2-1 Hamilton Stirling Albion 1-0 Falkirk Alloa 3-2 Ross County Ross County lost to Raith on penalties and are also out. Inverness lost to United on penalties. Kilmarnock 0-2 Morton St Johnstone lost to Brechin on penalties. Being 23, I've never seen Dundee win a major trophy and we've barely come close in that time, but I would take our current situation over what has happened in the last 20 years any day. I'm also waiting for everyone to jump on the players back after the league season kicks off but if we get 1 point from a trip to Dingwall and an OF match, I'll be delighted.

Feel it's a bit harsh including Loy in that list. He's spent the majority of the season out of position or on the bench and is still our second top scorer, only behind a striker in the form of his life and level with one of last year's premiership player of the year nominees!

Nope you're not alone. Surely the Main Stand moaning is worse than the Derry booing though? My personal favourite is "what has that Stewart boy done since he signed, scored a couple of fluke goals and that's it".

Pretty much what was putting me off. There is definitely a player in there but would probably turn out like a Nick Ross.

Saw on Facebook that Nicky Law won't be getting a new contract at Ibrox. Can't decide if he would be a good signing or not but we should sign him regardless, purely so that we can confuse everyone by having Law, Low and Loy in the starting 11...

Tenacious D - The Devil Went Down to Georgia