All things Dundee FC

[capt_oats]

Am I right in thinking Cammy Kerr is suspended for the next game? Don't know if it's been mentioned already or not

Yassss! That's pleasing to hear.

[RandomGuy.]

Am I right in thinking Cammy Kerr is suspended for the next game? Don't know if it's been mentioned already or not

He is yeah

[RawB93]

Looked like he was injured anyway so I suppose it's fortunate timing.

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

Its ok, we've got Hateley to fill in at RB.

Edited April 16, 2017 by Bigmouth Strikes Again

[Girth]

Its ok, we've got Hateley to fill in at RB.

Someone needs to 'Fill him in' tbh

[Bigmouth Strikes Again]

4 minutes ago, Girth said:

 

Someone needs to 'Fill him in' tbh

 

Yeah, you'd never tire of slapping that smug pus.

[Shadow Play]

53 minutes ago, Bigmouth Strikes Again said:

Its ok, we've got Hateley to fill in at RB.

Hope Hartley and Hately watched Sportcene tonight.  Hately getting slated for his pathetic defending.  Couldn't help but think he's not much good at going forward either.  Oh, and he's not even a dead ball specialist.  Apparently he's one of out top earners though. Totally unbelievable piece of business if true.

[LiamDFC]

1 hour ago, Shadow Play said:

Hope Hartley and Hately watched Sportcene tonight.  Hately getting slated for his pathetic defending.  Couldn't help but think he's not much good at going forward either.  Oh, and he's not even a dead ball specialist.  Apparently he's one of out top earners though. Totally unbelievable piece of business if true.

Heard he's actually the top earner at the club and is getting close to double Cammys wage. He's also on a two year deal.

Thanks for that, Hartley.

[Girth]

Heard he's actually the top earner at the club and is getting close to double Cammys wage. He's also on a two year deal.
Thanks for that, Hartley.

Oh jeez

[Dee Man]

2 minutes ago, LiamDFC said:

Heard he's actually the top earner at the club and is getting close to double Cammys wage. He's also on a two year deal.

Thanks for that, Hartley.

Fucking hell. 

Did Hartley ever see him play before he signed him, and if so, WTF did he see in him to warrant signing him let alone paying him a shitload of money?

I would love to see the fees we've paid out to agents over Hartley's tenure.

[Shadow Play]

Just like most clubs Dundee have a set budget for each season and Hartley knows this.  It it's true Hately is our top earner then Hartley's judgement is truly appalling.  Both on a footballing level and a 'spending resources wisely' level.

Hately was clearly yet another panic singing.  Then again, Hartley knew better than anyone that after three years of him brining in midfielders to the club the midfield was nowhere near good enough.  

The more you look at Hartley's team building efforts over the period he has been at Dens the more it is blatantly obvious he is not a good manager.

 

 

[LiamDFC]

4 minutes ago, Shadow Play said:

Just like most clubs Dundee have a set budget for each season and Hartley knows this.  It it's true Hately is our top earner then Hartley's judgement is truly appalling.  Both on a footballing level and a 'spending resources wisely' level.

Hately was clearly yet another panic singing.  Then again, Hartley knew better than anyone that after three years of him brining in midfielders to the club the midfield was nowhere near good enough.  

The more you look at Hartley's team building efforts over the period he has been at Dens the more it is blatantly obvious he is not a good manager.

All very good points.

Now that I've had a bit of time to calm down after our latest capitulation, here are my thoughts. Hartley has gone from being one of the most promising young managers in the country to channeling the type of stubborn, unimaginative dinosaur we've been plagued with for decades. His formations in the second half of this season are as bad as I've seen as a Dundee fan — the players are indeed poor but they could certainly be organised in a way to grind out results. The Rangers and Motherwell games (and possibly the St Johnstone game that followed those) are proof that there is something lurking beneath the surface of this squad, but he seems utterly incapable of drawing it out.

I think his biggest crime, IMO, has been his failure to recruit a single effective winger since taking over from Bomber. This creates pressure all over the park; absolutely no width and it means the midfield and strikers never have an out ball to help them create some space up top.

When he came in, Hartley went out of his way to drop guys like Nicky Riley (who was of course limited, but at least had excellent hair) and never replaced them. The resulting shambles was part of the reason we've currently got so many people out of position. Take Mark O'Hara for example. Started life as a center half. Came to Dundee to play defensive midfield/central midfield. Has ended up an auxiliary striker and a winger at different points of the season, to absolutely no prevail. It's just madness.

If you ask me, the formation hasn't reflected the available squad (natural positions or skills) since the St Mirren game IMO. Cammy Kerr is another example here; player of the season (admittedly out of a terrible bunch), switched to a LM/LWB (sorry, he wasn't playing as a LB on Saturday, for those that have said that, Holt was still covering that so that Cammy could stay further forward). Utterly bizarre behaviour.

We're now in a very similar situation to that of Bombers final months. A squad full of terrible, unmotivated central midfielders that are simply not skilled or flexible enough to fill in other positions. Couple that with a system that clearly doesn't suit them and we are staring relegation right in the face.

He's lost the plot and needs sacked right now.

Thank you.

[capt_oats]

27 minutes ago, LiamDFC said:

Now that I've had a bit of time to calm down after our latest capitulation, here are my thoughts. Hartley has gone from being one of the most promising young managers in the country to channeling the type of stubborn, unimaginative dinosaur we've been plagued with for decades. His formations in the second half of this season are as bad as I've seen as a Dundee fan — the players are indeed poor but they could certainly be organised in a way to grind out results. The Rangers and Motherwell games (and possibly the St Johnstone game that followed those) are proof that there is something lurking beneath the surface of this squad, but he seems utterly incapable of drawing it out.

Not to be a dick but unless you're talking about the 0-0 at Fir Park or the 2-0 win at Dens after your goalkeeper fell into the net with the ball then fair enough but I wouldn't be in a rush to use that 5-1 as any sort of a benchmark for Hartley's ability. It was the single worst Motherwell performance I've seen in nearly 30 years going to Fir Park, it said much more about us and McGhee than it did Dundee.

The back 4 consisted of two 19 year olds (one of whom was only making his 2nd first team start in his career), a centre half who prior to joining us has been playing solely at National League level in England and Joe fucking Chalmers all playing in front of a limited goalkeeper whose confidence has been absolutely shot to pieces and a manager in charge for whom the writing was absolutely on the wall after an increasingly regular series of meltdowns.

Well done on winning that game and everything and of course you can only beat what's in front of you but a bit of context about the shape of the team you stuck 5 past is probably in order.

Edited April 16, 2017 by capt_oats

[eindhovendee]

All very good points.
Now that I've had a bit of time to calm down after our latest capitulation, here are my thoughts. Hartley has gone from being one of the most promising young managers in the country to channeling the type of stubborn, unimaginative dinosaur we've been plagued with for decades. His formations in the second half of this season are as bad as I've seen as a Dundee fan — the players are indeed poor but they could certainly be organised in a way to grind out results. The Rangers and Motherwell games (and possibly the St Johnstone game that followed those) are proof that there is something lurking beneath the surface of this squad, but he seems utterly incapable of drawing it out.
I think his biggest crime, IMO, has been his failure to recruit a single effective winger since taking over from Bomber. This creates pressure all over the park; absolutely no width and it means the midfield and strikers never have an out ball to help them create some space up top.
When he came in, Hartley went out of his way to drop guys like Nicky Riley (who was of course limited, but at least had excellent hair) and never replaced them. The resulting shambles was part of the reason we've currently got so many people out of position. Take Mark O'Hara for example. Started life as a center half. Came to Dundee to play defensive midfield/central midfield. Has ended up an auxiliary striker and a winger at different points of the season, to absolutely no prevail. It's just madness.
If you ask me, the formation hasn't reflected the available squad (natural positions or skills) since the St Mirren game IMO. Cammy Kerr is another example here; player of the season (admittedly out of a terrible bunch), switched to a LM/LWB (sorry, he wasn't playing as a LB on Saturday, for those that have said that, Holt was still covering that so that Cammy could stay further forward). Utterly bizarre behaviour.
We're now in a very similar situation to that of Bombers final months. A squad full of terrible, unmotivated central midfielders that are simply not skilled or flexible enough to fill in other positions. Couple that with a system that clearly doesn't suit them and we are staring relegation right in the face.
He's lost the plot and needs sacked right now.
Thank you.

Nicky Riley's hair was rather excellent.

Even if the man was made of Walker's crisps.

[Dee Man]

I've just had a message saying there's a meeting with Hartley today and it's looking like he'll be gone.

[Stellaboz]

Till November?

[Ludo*1]

I'll actually feel a bit sorry for him once it's all done and dusted. It's absolutely the right decision to offload him, but he's done a fantastic job on and off the pitch with us until this season which has been a complete disaster for him. A few of the things that have led to it being a disaster have been outwith his control, and I've no doubts if we stayed up he'd have made a much better fist of it next season.

His position is untenable unfortunately, and he'll now be remembered more for this season than the good spells we had under him. Wish him all the best if he goes, but it's the correct decision.

[Mr Gandosaur]

I'll actually feel a bit sorry for him once it's all done and dusted. It's absolutely the right decision to offload him, but he's done a fantastic job on and off the pitch with us until this season which has been a complete disaster for him. A few of the things that have led to it being a disaster have been outwith his control, and I've no doubts if we stayed up he'd have made a much better fist of it next season.
His position is untenable unfortunately, and he'll now be remembered more for this season than the good spells we had under him. Wish him all the best if he goes, but it's the correct decision.

I'd argue we underachieved last season too. We had 3 players in the team of the season and finished 8th and had 2 cup disasters v Rangers and Dunfermline. He done well to sign those players but should have done better with the quality he had at his disposal.

[Shadow Play]

Sorry but I won't have a bit of sympathy for him.  Perhaps if he owned up to making some mistakes I would but remember even after the 7-0 defeat against Aberdeen he claimed he had prepared the team correctly.  Did the tactics deployed that night even remotely look like the preparation was right?

He was given a top 6 budget and only just achieved that once in 3 years.  Let's be brutally honest here, if it wasn't for Stewart and Hemmings we would have struggled big time.  He has shown little or no ability in finding other good players, or at the very least getting the best out of his signings.

The success of Stewart and Hemmings fuelled his arrogance.  At the Q&A session at the start of the season when one or two fans were suggesting all was not well he shot them down.  He actually said (and this sums up how confused his thinking is) that he was happy with the team's passing ability and thought we played good decisive passing.  Why change to the big punt up the park if that were the case?  Talk about muddled thinking.

No, sorry, but being a manger in the top flight is just too much for him.  Like some players, he will be fine in the lower leagues but when he comes up against top flight tactics he is nowhere near good enough.

[The Master]

We can't airbrush history.  He did what no other manager had done in 8 previous attempts, by getting us promoted (as much as I'd like to, I can't count Barry Smith taking us up by default when Rangers died - at the end of the day we still finished second). He then led us to a top-6 finish in that first season, even if we did eventually limp over the line after Hamilton's late-season capitulation. None of that can be ignored and we should absolutely be grateful for it.

But last year we went right downhill. With the squad we had, we should have been challenging for the top 6 again. But instead we only really confirmed safety from the play-offs in our first post-split game. Which also happened to relegate the DABs - something that papered over the cracks. In some ways, that has echoes of the Kernaghan era where the Scottish Cup run hid an atrocious league campaign until we got our arses handed to us by Gretna at Hampden. 

Losing Hemmings and Stewart this season was a blow, and you can't blame the manager for that. But what you can blame him for is failing to bring in replacements that were even half as good. Instead he signed a bunch of has-beens and general shite. 

It's also the fact that he doesn't seem to ever have a plan B. On the occasions we played well and took the lead against teams, you could see their manager changing it. Sometimes it didn't work, but he at least was giving it a go. Not Hartley. If plan A doesn't work, he's lost. And increasingly, teams became aware of our plan A which snookered us from the off. 

Thanks for the memories, but I'm afraid times up.