Ya Bezzer!

Moult and McDonald have both played in wide-ish positions in the past. In fact one of our big problems recently is that because our wide players weren't doing their job McDonald has been forced wide to pick up ball and then there is no one in the box. You could possible accommodate Moult, McDonald and Bowman into a 4-3-2-1 formation and playing a bit narrower than we have done with Johnson and Ainsworth. Cadden has been our most effective player recently getting into those wide positions from midfield so it's not like the 'wingers' have been really contributing anyway.

He was a pretty good goal record over a few clubs. We'll see of course but generally that's a good sign. Although perhaps McDonald will leave for Australia now.....

I'd throw my blue and white striped night cap across the room in disgust and then refuse to drink the rest of my cocoa.

Or we could just use Twitter. Or announce it to the media.

Banks still use them to get things signed off. Perhaps that's why football clubs still use them.

Some times. Like Johnson, a bit up and down but he'd be an adequate replacement. He's started a few matches for Aberdeen this season though so I'm a bit surprised, Aberdeen don't have the biggest squad although they have brought in a loan signing I think.

Not really. If you bought a house at £30,000, made minimal improvements to it, then sold it again at 10 x the price 18 months later, you'd be doing cartwheels. People need to get this into their heads, Marvin Johnson is not that good. OK, here's a hypothetical situation. If some old lady died and left £1,000,000 to be spent on transfers to Motherwell FC, would you be happy with us spending £500,000 or even the whole lot on Marvin Johnson having seen him play 60+ times? I'll say it again, he's just not that good.

£350,000 + adds ons, apparently.

Imagine demanding to leave and putting in a transfer request to go to Oxford United! Last match I described Marvin as a jobber after an abysmal performance when he barely worked up a sweat or had one decent touch or even looked at all interested. There's your evidence right there.

Be fair, there was never any chance of him going for some of the sums being banded about, it was pure cuckoo cuckoo land stuff.

If we got £500,000 for Johnson, we should take the money and run. Does he have potential - yes. Well, actually, maybe not. He's coming up on 26 years old, no kid. While he's clearly got a bit more than the average footballer at this level, his inconsistency is his most consistent trait. He's hardly had two good games back to back in his time here. Probably his most exciting period of form included Annan, East Stirlingshire and Kilmarnock and came to a clattering halt against the first half decent opposition we came up against. Maybe tells you something. 6 goals in 56 league matches tells you something as well. A goal every 10 matches for an attacking midfielder/forward is hardly gold dust. Think of some of the wide players that have left Fir Park in recent times - McCormack, Murphy, O'Brien, even Humphrey - all better than Johnson. I was no great fan of Humphrey in the beginning but eventually he won me over and left a far better player than we signed. If Johnson leaves, can he say the same? I don't think so, and if he has its marginal. I'm strangely unmoved about the whole thing. I neither want to hound him out the club nor would lose a wink of sleep if we sold him.

Cadden.

I think Tait has been pretty good from what I've seen although he offers very little in terms of going forward.

2 points dropped. Said before the match Dundee weren't better than us and today proved that. The story of the match was Chris Cadden roasting the left back and going down the wing, then looking up at the box to see Scott McDonald being man marked by a guy about 6 inches taller than him and two spare defenders to mop up any second balls. No one else. No runners, no Ainsworth, no Johnson, no Clay, no one at all. That was the match, no changes made, no lessons learned. Positives - Chalmers and Clay were as good as I've seen them first half although Clay fell off a cliff in the 2nd, Lasley has better legs than him by a mile. McDonald deserves a medal for bursting his guts for 90 minutes with virtually no support whatsoever and Cadden was tremendous. Tait and Heneghan seem like improvements on last season. Negatives - Ainsworth and Johnson should be looking a Cadden today and coming off the field ashamed of themselves. No hunger, no desire, no energy, absolute jobber performances from those two. Both needed a kick up the backside at half time and either didn't get one or it wasn't hard enough. If Moult and Pearson had played today we would have won comfortably. Unfortunately they didn't and we need other players to step up and make the runs into the box and no one did, whether it be through lack of confidence or just laziness.

I think playing the league cup at the beginning of the season has effected it as well. You start the season with the big competition, not what were seen by many as glorified friendlies. Then when the league comes round we are 4 underwhelming weeks into the season.

He was the weakest player in a pretty good side. Could you say that if you put him in the current team? And I'd guess playing abroad for a spell will have improved him. Also think some Dundee fans have been on his Wikipedia page "On 26 August 2016 Hateley is said to have turned down Scottish Cup holders Hibernian FC of Edinburgh due to the fact that they play in a "diddy league with the likes of Dundee United"

The most worrying thing about the last match was the attendance. 3,700 for our first league match of the season, more than a 1,000 down on last seasons opening league match. Hopefully we can muster a few more bodies this week.

If Duffy and McGowan miss out it's a pretty workmanlike Dundee side. If they do come back they might not be match fit. They have also played 3 and 4 at the back this season so I suspect Hartley isn't happy with the team and isn't sure how to get the best out of them. If they bring the new guy Gomis into the side they will probably go for 3 at the back again with 5 in midfield so that might give McGhee something to think about if they have three ball winners in the middle of the park, probably Vincent, Ross and O'Hara.

McCormack's role has changed since McGhee was his manager. Back then he was a winger with electric pace. Now he's bulked out a bit, plays more as a central striker and probably doesn't have that level of speed off the mark. Still don't think he's (or Rhodes) have been treated fairly though.

There's only three Old Firm players in the squad. Liam Kelly is on loan at Livingston and is basically the only U21 eligible goalkeeper playing week in, week out in the league system. Liam Henderson and Ryan Christie are at Celtic and both good young players.

To be fair Gauld, Henderson, Slater, Nicholson and Macleod are all good players on at least a par with Cadden. Craig Storie, he plays a different position. The only one I would question is Billy King but he's much more experienced than Cadden and is an established member of the squad. Think with Scotland squads, whether full team or U21s, you judge the manager on the result not the squad he picks. Do I rate Sbragia? Nope but he's in charge for the meantime and thats that.

I've mentioned this a few times as well.

Why when they have David Gray?

How our team will line up on a week to week basis is still highly flexible. I think our midfielders all have something to prove and the return of Moult will also change things, probably Ainsworth dropping out of the starting XI. I can see us starting typically with Moult, McDonald and Johnson upfront and Cadden, Lasley and McHugh in midfield with alterations to suit any particular threats or weaknesses in the opposition.

Dundee were abject in the first half and got a bit better in the second, I'd hardly say they 'came on strong'. I've only seen highlights of both matches but I'd say ours compared favorably with theirs.