Kmcalpin

100% My choice. A good mixture of skills and attributes. As you say Shaw may also have role to play.

Pretty much my view Yorky. When I saw the line up at 7.30 I was happy to settle for a point. Hibs, were no great shakes and there for the ebating but Shaun Maloney would have said the same about us. Given we finished with 10 men, I was reasonably happy at full time. I think Macey had one save and Kelly had none. That says it all. The weather was horrific and that played its part. Defensively we were largely ok but were vulnerable down the exposed wings. O'Donnell had a shaky first 45 and got on the wrong side of his opponent 3 or 4 times; fortunately that wasn't costly. Sondre Solheim had a great game. Of late we've not been shipping many goals at Fir park. Lets hope that continues. Midfield was once again largely anonymous with little creativity and lack of support for our front men. Goss was the best of the bunch. GA was right to substitute Tierney to manage out the game when down to 10 men. Time to try options than Donnelly and Maguire, and we have them. Up front the "strikers" had an off night with Van Veen missing a first half sitter. As with last Saturday, they just didn't link up and ploughed 3 separate furrows. We're missing Watt badly. Only other short term option is to drop the 4-3-3- formation. Andrew Dallas failed to control the game as evidenced by 2 incidents involving the remarkably unbooked Bushiri. First time he was injured off the pitch then got up to enter it again in order to fall down. Secondly, he was injured off the pitch but Dallas saw fit to stop play until he recovered. Donnelly gave him " a decision to make" what ever that means, and he took it. McGinn also gave him a decision to make when he wiped out Roberts on the edge of the box within sight of goal and he didn't take it. On the positive side we showed grit and determination to see out the game when a man short.

Excellent news.

Agree 100%. Barry Maguire is a "big honest laddie" but thats it. He's one of our own and always tries his hardest but is that good enough? Last night, once again, the game largely passed him by and his impact on it was negligible. We need much more than that from a player in a midfield of only 3. That said Donnelly didn't help him. Management must see something in him if they've given him a new 2 year deal. There are other options on the bench. I know they are different types of player and midfield is often about that mix of types, but surely Slattery is our best midfielder? Dean Cornelius is one of our own and has done enough, in my view, to be given another start. Liam Shaw is only with us on a temporary loan and I'd like to see what he can do in midfield rather than in defence, sooner rather than later. GA however knows more about individual fitness and injury issues than we do and he plays his cards close to his chest. Who knows what is going on behind the scenes. We have issues up front. Its becoming clear that Van Veen is our only central option and although talented he's becoming a latter day Stuart Elliott, with attitude. I'm not sure about Conor Shields. Was quite impressed with him until last night but he's no winger and is a bit lightweight for the middle. Looks to me like he'd play well off the shoulder of a bigger and stronger partner in the Higdon/Jutkiewicz mould. Its how we get the best out of him. The bottom line is that we miss Watt badly. We need someone strong enough to hold the ball up with a bit of nous to link up others. In fairness last night, midfield weren't supporting the strikers.

I wasn't aware that he had. However until that game I was somewhat naive believing that football was all about 2 teams going hammer and tongs at each other fairly and the best team won. However Alex Ferguson's antics soon dispelled that myth and I've never had any time for him since.

I'd think another striker is a must. Conor Shields is showing promise but he's a work in progress. I like KVV a lot but he is slightly injury prone and susceptible to the odd card meaning that suspensions are inevitable. That leaves us a bit short. Ross Tierney looks really promising but I'm not sure where fits in a 4-3-3- formation. I think he's more suited to some variant of 4-4-2. As always time will tell.

Thats pretty much it Allan as we said during the game. We may have a good number of midfielders on paper but not all are decent first team material.

We deserved to win today although we made very hard work of it - self inflicted. As others have said, the team selection surprised me before kick off and my fears were realised. The defence was just ok but O'Donnell got caught on the wrong side of his man a couple of times and we lacked an aggressive dominant central defender at both ends of the park. I don’t know what Carroll was doing for Morton’s goal – just seemed to be a bemused spectator caught in no mans land– this game was his big chance to impress. I thought midfield was very poor with Goss being the best of a bad bunch. He’s the kind of player who needs other midfielders to do the spade work for him. Donnelly was anonymous apart from his match winning peach of a goal and I just don't see what Barry Maguire brings to the team. At times the defence lost patience with the midfield and just began shelling balls forward, in desperation, to an outnumbered Shields. We had better midfielders on the bench like Slattery, Corelius and perhaps the untested Shaw. Tierney added much needed energy and pace when he appeared. Up front no-one shone except Van Veen who had been inexplicably benched. The front 3 didn't work with two isolated wide men and Shields ploughing a lone furrow in middle against 3 big defenders. For me, we can't play Roberts and Woolery together - we need to bring in another main striker. I was surprised this front line up wasn't jettisoned after Tuesday night. There were plenty of crosses from out wide, but very often no-one in the box to get on the end of them. Morton did what they came to do and their keeper, for all his weaknesses is a great shot stopper. They were a bit crude at times and the lad Strapp made 4 blatant dives, winning fouls for them all. Overall the ref was ok but a bit inconsistent at times. I don't know why we benched several of our first picks but it was a big risk which almost didn't come off. Lets hope we change things around for the upcoming Hibs game.

Really impressed with young Tierney when he came on. Quick and good on the ball. He'll need to put a stone of muscle on though. The key thing for me is where and how we play him. The other thing I took from today is that we need to add another striker this window to replace Watt - not necessarily like for like though.

We almost have a stronger bench than the picked 11!!

Not overly worried about that. Dundee have cash to burn as we know and have always been known as a "If its new and shiny we'll buy 3 " kind of club. They'll be desperate to get rid of Cummings and Griffiths.

After Tuesday evening's result, there's a good case to be made for making changes to all areas of the team except Goalie. However I trust GA to pick the right team. He sees the players in training and knows them better than we do. The outstanding issue I have, like many others, is why Slattery has been benched. All this said, he might choose the same team in order for them to "put matters right". Who knows?

Interesting article from the Dundee Courier https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/sport/football/dundee-united/2923494/tony-watt-i-dont-care-what-critics-say/

An even longer one for the players I'll wager. I doubt many of them would want to have sat anywhere near him.

Just listened to Graham Alexander's interview. Rarely have I heard or seen a manager so seething with anger.

Any weaknesses we had tonight or indeed have had for some time go way beyond Nathan McGinley. I believe both full backs have been poor this season but they've been hung out to dry by a narrow midfield. For whatever reason our midfield line up tonight was well below our best selection. I'm also not convinced of our striking line up tonight. However I believe in GA and don't think he'll shy away from tough decisions. If we're going to shell long balls up front, and I've no objections to doing that,then another striker is required.

I wasn't at the game fortunately and haven't seen any of it but am I correct in thinking that if it wasn't for Nathan McGinley we would have won tonight?

and Shaw has yet to play.

Yes, 2 goalies on bench but no Shaw or Tierney.

Interesting line up. Still no Ojala and Slattery still on bench. Two "wide" players up front. Not sure about midfield or strikers but I can't argue with GA's record so far.

It speaks volumes that Dundee wanted to cut his loan short whilst Celtic wanted to extend it. A unique loan situation I think.

Dundee Courier reports Watt's fee as being £100,000. I don't necessarily believe that though.

Is Tierney not a midfielder, albeit an attacking one? Watt was a striker.

Irrespective of what we call them or how we categorise them, we haven't seen much of Woolery, Roberts or Amaluzor play in the middle.

But, 3 of them are wingers.