It seems all I do is write about us drawing nowadays.
The game on Friday night against St Johnstone was our FOURTH 1-1 draw in a row in the league (our fifth in six games) which is a first for the club. We previously had four 1-1 results on the trot back in 1985 but one of them was in the cup against the now defunct Glasgow Rangers.
Again, like last week, this was a very good point for the Dee. St Johnstone are on a good run of form and are knocking the goals in at the moment so I was a bit on edge before the game about how our defence would hold out against them. Despite one or two penetrations from their players, I thought the defence played well and only a brilliant run from O’Halloran down the right opened us up for their equaliser.
Our goal was a brilliant piece of play. For the fans that do not know, Greg Stewart and Kane Hemmings have a history of playing upfront with each another. A few seasons back they were the main men in attack for Cowdenbeath and even though the club were always struggling in the Championship, these two linked up well and knocked in over thirty goals in a season between them.
Stewart collected the ball, played it to Hemmings and then shared a one-two before Hemmings hit a sweet left foot strike into the bottom right hand side of the goal. This is the type of link up play we have been waiting to see all season between these two and hopefully it will not be the last.
When the full time whistle went, it was a fair result for both teams. That is two tough away games back to back we have managed to take something from and hopefully it is something that the team can build on as we enter December where three out of the four games we play are winnable.
Aberdeen are up next at Dens Park this Saturday in a dinner time kick off on Sky Sports. It will be a tough match against a very good Dons team but we can certainly get the win. Aberdeen have experienced a slump in form after winning their first eight games of the season and despite picking up a couple of wins the past few weeks, reports are suggesting they are not playing that well and are looking suspect at the back. If there was ever a good time to get a win over them at Dens, it is now.
We will also be hoping to start pulling away from the teams at the bottom. We may have only lost two games in the last ten but the amount of draws we have accumulated seem to be catching up as the teams below us have picked up a win or two to close the gap from second bottom to us to just five points.
Even if we do not manage a win against Aberdeen and at the worst get a draw, our next two games come up against Motherwell and Hamilton and coming away with six points here is certainly possible. This would release any pressure that could be put on the team in case the teams below us close the gap any more.
Going back to the Aberdeen game for a moment, if we manage a draw then we will equal a club record five games drawn in a row. We managed this record during the 2011/12 season.
Last week I wrote about the possibility of Dundee playing Celtic in America. That has gone quiet for the time being but we have another story that showed up that is worth writing about.
When our current owners took over, there was a lot of talk (and there still is) on building our youth team. Last week we saw the Head of Youth Gerry Creaney leave the club by mutual consent which we all know means he was more or less punted. This did seem out of the blue as he is fairly new in the job but the day after we were linked with some interesting developments.
A Dutch group are rumoured to be interested in investing or taking over the running of the Dundee youth team. The people in question are believed to have experience working with the highly-acclaimed Ajax youth system and would take full running of the youth side and bring in their own coaches.
I have no idea of the ins and outs of this but if we were getting paid for someone else with a CV with Ajax to their names and they were bankrolling the wages for the coaches and other things, it would be a no brainer. I would like to know what would be in it for them. No doubt anyone they train up and we sell on then they would bank some of the transfer fee, that is fair enough, but that cannot be all they are interested in.
Another story I have heard is that we are looking to appoint a Dutchman as our new Head of Youth. This may seem more likely than mentioned in my comments above. I have managed to speak to a few people that have children in the Dens set up and they have told me that someone has been across from Holland with his family to have a look at what we have to offer before taking time to think about moving family here and take the job.
Whatever the story is, it is been a fairly busy last few weeks at Dundee.
