weeyin

There's a huge gap between League 2 and the SPFL - even in fitness you can see a lot of guys that head north are not fit enough to play. I think the overall point is being missed though. It's not that a player is useless for 6 months. In this case, for me, Dunne was doing OK when it came to the basics of running, heading and tackling. People were judging him negatively on his ball retention and distribution. Now he's been playing a few months, that has improved. He's also had to learn things like how best to play in a back 3 one week and back 4 the next - and with different players in front of him; some who can defend and others not so much.

We beat Falkirk and Morton along the way to winning it last time. Either one of them would be just fine.

It's certainly working out well for them with all those cup wins.

Everybody on here predicted we'd be playing one of them.

It also shows that regardless of the dozens of times that it happens at our club alone, some fans never want to give a new player a chance. Wenger says it takes 6 months for a player to adapt to a new league. The East Stand reckons 1 game is sufficient.

Was watching the highlights on YouTube. No way from that footage to see if Cedric was actually offside, but there wasn't a single Dundee player appealed for it - instead they were arguing with themselves about giving away the goal.

I think Preston have forgotten Louis Moult too.

I always liked Dunne, and given his time out of the game, was happy to let him find his feet. I'm old school when it comes to defenders. You can coach passing and ball retention into a player, but you can't coach big and fast.

Aye, let Killie have another go at them on their plastic pitch.

He'll be hooked at half time for his own protection I imagine, but no protection from ref.

What's this spiel about Dundee liking to play football? From the commentary it seems their sole tactic is to kick Ciftci off the park and hope he retaliates.

Main, Ciftci and Tanner all start. Sounds like a good attacking formation.

You getting Sikh of the pun jabs?

As much as I prefer them to be midfield, we can always bring McHugh or Cadden back into defence. It's only for one game, so we'll cope.

3 at the back. Dunne, Aldred and Hendrie. Sorted.

Not ideal, but makes the Aldred signing an even better one.

Robinson said he was about to see a specialist, but might be long term. EDIT: beaten to it.

Although we often struggle at Dens, I fancy us to win this one by a couple. Then dream of another Cup Final before the inevitable next round draw pairs us with Celtic away.

Singh when we're winning Goan yirsel My Naan could do better (I'm bored at work too)

There was a piece in The Scotsman about him.

I'd rather we were 2 up and holding after 60 mins than 2 down and chasing, but that just me. Ideally, we'd be 2 up and still pressing - but that's another story.

I get the fact that games are tight in the first 30+ minutes, and that it's important to win your personal battles. We want our defenders to snuff out the opposition's strikers and our midfielders to stamp their authority on the game etc. I'm just not sure why that means we can't pass the ball on the deck when we have possession. Robinson was bemoaning our poor ball retention on Tuesday - if we aren't playing football for the first 45 minutes, that's exactly the result you'd expect. But, different managers, different approaches and all that. I just prefer the approach McGhee (the first time) and McCall took where we go at it hard for 60 or 70 minutes then shut it down if we need to.

Aye, I know I have been banging on about it recently, but I don't see why this "earning the right to play" means we can't pass the ball or keep possession. Definite improvement, though, from December - so won't complain too much.

TBF, the teams around us have played 8 or 9 homes games to our 5 - and we've only lost one. As for Celtic, between their 8 games and Rangers not even wanting to compete in this league, it's perfect evidence for giving their Colt Team idea the instant rejection it deserves.

Gregor Stevens wasn't a dirty player when he played for us the first time around. It was moving to Ibrox that changed things. It used to be the "Crime Count" in the Sunday Post gave a fair reflection of who was the dirtiest team, but as others have pointed out, these days it's less useful given what constitutes a foul. And while I agree with what Levein says about Brown, he might want to have a word with guys like Lafferty too.