Welcome back to another season of my feature on TEB, Mon the Dee.
What started off as a fairly quiet summer for Dundee quickly escalated into the sort of drama that we have not witnessed at Dens Park for a good few years.
A few new faces arrived while letting a couple of old ones leave before jetting off to Austria for the players to work on their fitness ahead of the new season. Everything seemed to be going well, or so we thought.
A disastrous League Cup campaign, influential playmaker Gary Harkins being banished to train with the kids and Kane Hemmings who scored twenty-five goals last season transferred to Oxford United for a measly £250,000 after they met a release clause in his contract.
All this happened in just a couple of weeks and sent some Dundee fans into meltdown.
First of all, the League Cup campaign. We had by far the easiest group out of anyone else. Not wanting to sound disrespectful to the teams we were drawn against (East Fife, Dumbarton, Peterhead and Forfar) but with the players at our disposal, it should have been four wins from four. Alas, it did not end up this way. We ended our involvement in the refreshed competition in the group stages, sitting in an embarrassing third place from five. We did manage two impressive score lines from our home games, 6-2 and 7-0, but it was the away form that cost us. Out the cup before the league campaign even kicks off.
Next up was the news that there had been some sort of falling out with the gaffer and playmaker Gary Harkins which had led to him being told to train with the kids. No-one knows what caused the fall out and a good few rumors have flown about but it is a real blow to be discarding a player of his ability out of the first team. Everyone has their own opinion on Harkins, some bad, some good, but no-one can disagree that when he is on his game, he can create chances out of nothing.
Last but not least, we have the Kane Hemmings transfer that has angered the majority of our support. For the past few months, there has been rumblings that Hemmings has had a quarter of a million pound release clause in his contract which was first reported by a local newspaper. The rumors were eventually quashed by the club but as we all now know, this was a lie.
I understand why they responded the way they did. They do not want to lose someone like Kane for a pittance so to publicly say there is no such clause was to hopefully put teams off. I get that but the timing of it all, especially when the clubs are desperate to sell more season tickets, was hardly ideal.
Some people have had a go at the club also for accepting a clause like this in the first place but we all know that if we rejected it, we no doubt would nofour appearances and then sold on for a profit.
Who am I kidding? We should have got more than quadruple that for him.
We are also potentially seeing what looks like the end of Greg Stewart’s career at Dundee if the English clubs that have had bids rejected for him table a serious offer that meets the clubs valuation.
This player has been the stand-out for me since he signed from Cowdenbeath a few seasons ago and if or when he goes it will hurt the team more than your Harkins or Hemmings. Players are always replaceable but we will find it hard to replace one of Greg’s ability. It would be a massive boost though if we are able to keep hold of him for one more season.
So after all of that, what are my predictions for the new season?
I fully expect us to be in the same situation as last year. Not in a relegation fight and vying for a finish in the top six. I have seen people predicting we will struggle at the bottom end of the table with the loss of Hemmings and potentially Stewart but I feel we still have a squad strong enough to achieve this. Like last season though, the defensive area worries me and I would have like to have seen a big brute of a centre back brought in along with a full back.
We kick off our league campaign this Saturday so we will get our first glimpse of our newish look team. First up is a trip up to Dingwall to take on Ross County. I think it has been five long years since we last won up there hence why every time I preview a match between them I use the term ‘Highland Hoodoo.’
My heart says we will win this 2-0 but I can see it ending up as a score draw.
One thing is for certain, we are in for another eventful season!
MON THE DEE!
