All things Dundee FC

[Fifespud]

nathan ralph any good then? linked with aberdeen

He’s shite m8

[harry94]

Just now, d31 said:

nathan ralph any good then? linked with aberdeen

He was previously a winger and fell out of the Football League to sign for Woking who converted him to left-back and won him his move here. He looked a bit desperate to impress in his first game or two (making some small errors) and then spent a bit of time out injured before returning in October. From then on, he was our only dependable player and played 90 minutes in every game apart from a red card suspension (he made a silly tackle early on against Rangers which was a bit unfortunate - caused by others mistakes though) and a knock in one of the bottom six matches.

I think he'll be a decent player for a top flight team. I'd be a bit cautious about over hyping him, as it isn't hard to look good in our 11, but he has all the all round skills required and there aren't any obvious massive weaknesses that I think restrict him. He does sometimes struggle with marking and picking up the right players but I think that the team around him and management being a disaster probably plays a big part of that. He's probably worth the risk of a contract as I'd imagine he wouldn't be too expensive for you guys, could always send him back here on loan in January if he is struggling.

[Dee Man]

We've never had so many sellable assets as we have had in recent years and we've somehow contrived to get about 36 pence in total for the lot of them, bar Hendry. We could have seen a decent return on Bain, Caulker, Kamara and now Ralph but it looks like he's going for buttons at most. 

No-one wants to be a selling club but if we're just going to let players run down their contracts and contribute nothing on the pitch towards the end of their time at Dens then we'd be as well capitalising on them at their peak and getting cash in for new players.  We can never hold onto our best players anyway so we might as well try to cash in on them.

Obviously Ralph doesn't necessarily fall into this category but I can't believe a non-league player has managed to negotiate himself a contract that sees him leave for SFA. 

[Dee Bliss]

1 hour ago, RossBFaeDundee said:

Fair play to the lad, simply looking out for himself. I'd be doing the same in his situation tbh. Disappointing considering how good he turned out to be, but what can you do?

A wee bit of loyalty wouldn’t go amiss. 

[harry94]

16 minutes ago, Dee Man said:

We've never had so many sellable assets as we have had in recent years and we've somehow contrived to get about 36 pence in total for the lot of them, bar Hendry. We could have seen a decent return on Bain, Caulker, Kamara and now Ralph but it looks like he's going for buttons at most. 

No-one wants to be a selling club but if we're just going to let players run down their contracts and contribute nothing on the pitch towards the end of their time at Dens then we'd be as well capitalising on them at their peak and getting cash in for new players.  We can never hold onto our best players anyway so we might as well try to cash in on them.

Obviously Ralph doesn't necessarily fall into this category but I can't believe a non-league player has managed to negotiate himself a contract that sees him leave for SFA. 

A strategy of selling players to make profits just doesn't work. It didn't even work for United when they had an insane amount of talent at once, there was perception that they were doing well and paying their debts down but they were spending massive amounts of money and making very small figures - hitting a huge deficit when the talent dried up. The truth is there's never really a time to cash in if you're signing a player to a two year deal unless you're willing to let them go in a winter window six months in (and then spend £x on signing a less capable replacement or possibly risking relegation). The only way you could do it is if you're offering really long-term deals and we all know how many players we've had that have needed to be paid off in the last few years.

A much sounder economic strategy I think is to focus primarily on getting a stable 11 in place first and foremost and then the odd talent you come across in addition to that who does go for money is a bonus and you can adapt without them and hit you're 40 point mark fine. We went into this season with a starting 11 that was reliant on these sorts of development signings rather than them being in addition to it. Investing in potential is great but it should be to improve your football side first and foremost IMO. If you look at St Johnstone, they actually spend a long time investing in potential but a lot of it isn't seen because it's masked by boring late 20s unfashionable players.

[harry94]

1 minute ago, Yenitit said:

A wee bit of loyalty wouldn’t go amiss. 

I really don't get this. He owes us nothing, if he come here and things didn't go for him, the club would be doing whatever they could to get him off the wage bill; think of the players we sacked when we went into administration. There's maybe a few players who have some sort of sentiment for various reasons but footballers are just doing a job like any other.

[Ludo*1]

It's very difficult to get a dependable left back and Ralph is one. He's far from being brilliant and I'm disappointed to see him go, but that's more due to the thought of having to replace him rather than him being some wonderful player.

[Dee Bliss]

3 minutes ago, harry94 said:

I really don't get this. He owes us nothing, if he come here and things didn't go for him, the club would be doing whatever they could to get him off the wage bill; think of the players we sacked when we went into administration. There's maybe a few players who have some sort of sentiment for various reasons but footballers are just doing a job like any other.

You can’t keep throwing the administration card at the club when it was under different owners. If you can’t get the signing a contract and honouring it bit there’s not much I can do for you. It’s not as if we can punt him and not give him a pay out. 

 

[Dee Bliss]

1 minute ago, Ludo*1 said:

It's very difficult to get a dependable left back and Ralph is one. He's far from being brilliant and I'm disappointed to see him go, but that's more due to the thought of having to replace him rather than him being some wonderful player.

Basque Jon was a far better fullback imo. 

[Ludo*1]

2 minutes ago, Yenitit said:

Basque Jon was a far better fullback imo. 

I'd say Kevin Holt was at least as good.

Ralph was positionally lacking, didn't provide a cracking ball in but was decent in the hair.

Ralph's better than Willie Dyer. Can't think of other fullbacks we've had since being promoted. He's not as good as a past it Matt Lockwood.

[Coventry Saint]

Goodwin a done deal, then?

I love that man. Hope he wins you the title and also fucks Morten.

[harry94]

You can’t keep throwing the administration card at the club when it was under different owners. If you can’t get the signing a contract and honouring it bit there’s not much I can do for you. It’s not as if we can punt him and not give him a pay out. 
 

He's honoured his contract? He signed a deal that commited him to the club for one season if we were relegated.

He's not going to give up doubling his salary by £30-40k because it's nice when clubs will have happily released him in the past.

[Derry Alli]

Are folk having a go at Ralph for wanting to better himself and play at the highest level possible? 

I'm chuffed for him if he gets the move. He's the type of player we should be looking to bring in. Absolutely f**k signing a boy who is happy to just play in the Championship. The top league is bad enough. Good luck to the laddie. 

Loyalty?! 

If that was an issue he'd still be playing for the under9's manager he started his footballing life with. 

[Dee Bliss]

1 minute ago, harry94 said:

He's honoured his contract? He signed a deal that commited him to the club for one season if we were relegated.

He's not going to give up doubling his salary by £30-40k because it's nice when clubs will have happily released him in the past.

He’s trying to jump ship at the 1st opportunity. We also honour contracts when players are out injured for long spells, Ralph, Meekings, Davies and pish ones like Hamilton. 

According to your good self yesterday Utd were going to get at least 70 points and us under 60 so probably doesn’t matter anyway. 

[Dee Bliss]

2 minutes ago, Dele said:

Are folk having a go at Ralph for wanting to better himself and play at the highest level possible? 

I'm chuffed for him if he gets the move. He's the type of player we should be looking to bring in. Absolutely f**k signing a boy who is happy to just play in the Championship. The top league is bad enough. Good luck to the laddie. 

Loyalty?! 

If that was an issue he'd still be playing for the under9's manager he started his footballing life with. 

There’s a way to go about doing it imo. Forcing the issue through invoking a release clause isn’t 1 of them. If a club came in with an offer we find acceptable then that’s a different matter. We’d hardly be hard to deal with, 50k is about his worth tbh.  

[Dee Man]

46 minutes ago, harry94 said:

A strategy of selling players to make profits just doesn't work. It didn't even work for United when they had an insane amount of talent at once, there was perception that they were doing well and paying their debts down but they were spending massive amounts of money and making very small figures - hitting a huge deficit when the talent dried up. The truth is there's never really a time to cash in if you're signing a player to a two year deal unless you're willing to let them go in a winter window six months in (and then spend £x on signing a less capable replacement or possibly risking relegation). The only way you could do it is if you're offering really long-term deals and we all know how many players we've had that have needed to be paid off in the last few years.

A much sounder economic strategy I think is to focus primarily on getting a stable 11 in place first and foremost and then the odd talent you come across in addition to that who does go for money is a bonus and you can adapt without them and hit you're 40 point mark fine. We went into this season with a starting 11 that was reliant on these sorts of development signings rather than them being in addition to it. Investing in potential is great but it should be to improve your football side first and foremost IMO. If you look at St Johnstone, they actually spend a long time investing in potential but a lot of it isn't seen because it's masked by boring late 20s unfashionable players.

I'm not talking about signing players with the sole intention of selling them at some point in the future - we've been burned like that before - but if we find ourselves with talent that we could do a turn on, we'd be as well getting the cash in than having a player down tools as soon as his head's turned. Easy to say in hindsight obviously after watching the aforementioned players go for hee-haw, and I doubt I'd be of the same mindset if Andy Nelson is firing us to the title next season and we get a good offer for him in January, but it sticks in the craw to see Scott Bain and Glen Kamara getting rave reviews for their performances and we got a Kit Kat and a packet packet of futba stickers in return for plucking them from obscurity. 

Obviously it's happened loads of times before and will again in the future but it still doesn't make it any easier to take.

<<< verge of tears

Eta: And if Utd managed to squander millions of quid profit they got for players that's down to their financial mismanagement, not because it was a bad strategy to sell Ryan Gauld. 

Edited May 28, 2019 by Dee Man

[harry94]

There’s a way to go about doing it imo. Forcing the issue through invoking a release clause isn’t 1 of them. If a club came in with an offer we find acceptable then that’s a different matter. We’d hardly be hard to deal with, 50k is about his worth tbh.  

You're making the assumption that teams will part cash for him though, totally flawed and a risk that could cost himself a huge amount of money. He'll be 27 next season and hasn't spent a huge amount of time playing at this level or even playing in his position, he's not a special talent that teams will be that desperate for and it still is a bit of a risk.

[The Gifted Sub]

Ralph was good, will be a loss.  Was better than Kevin Holt.  

[harry94]

15 minutes ago, Dee Man said:

I'm not talking about signing players with the sole intention of selling them at some point in the future - we've been burned like that before - but if we find ourselves with talent that we could do a turn on, we'd be as well getting the cash in than having a player down tools as soon as his head's turned. Easy to say in hindsight obviously after watching the aforementioned players go for hee-haw, and I doubt I'd be of the same mindset if Andy Nelson is firing us to the title next season and we get a good offer for him in January, but it sticks in the craw to see Scott Bain and Glen Kamara getting rave reviews for their performances and we got a Kit Kat and a packet packet of futba stickers in return for plucking them from obscurity. 

Obviously it's happened loads of times before and will again in the future but it still doesn't make it any easier to take.

<<< verge of tears

Eta: And if Utd managed to squander millions of quid profit they got for players that's down to their financial mismanagement, not because it was a bad strategy to sell Ryan Gauld. 

True true. I just always like to urge a bit of caution, very easy to see the success stories but it requires a very good manager to get it right and identify the right players and most examples of teams trying it always reverts to a bit of a numbers game where they sign so many and a couple are good (and then sometimes come with concessions re sell on clauses to beat interest from elsewhere).

We've only seen him once but I am really looking forward to seeing how this batch of youth players get on. I thought the young boy Robertson looked a great talent with how he could play a bit of football etc, hoping he maybe gets some League Cup action.

[Fifespud]

Nathan who?

Bought my season ticket today and I’d somehow convinced myself I was going to find WGS and Charlie Adam picking up their DFC duvet covers in the shop when I got there. Sadly I was disappointed. Not sure how the draw works for the LC - does the seeded team not get the shiteiest opponents at home? If not I really fancy the trip to Cove.