The fans asked and pleaded for Paul Hartley to change it around after a disappointing set of results and he did just that against Celtic on Saturday.
Hartley opted to go two up front and played what seemed to be a 3-5-2 formation against the Glasgow side that had just held English giants Manchester City to a draw in midweek at Parkhead in the Champions League.
It was always going to be an uphill task to get a result against Celtic and unfortunately we weren’t able to produce one but there were various aspects of the game that gave me glimmers of hope and ones that showed where we are serverely lacking.
I’ll start with the things that we lacked throughout the ninety minutes. The big one for me was the link up play between the midfield and forward line. We resorted to mostly punts up field to Yordi but they didn’t really evolve too much and when it did, the Celtic defence were all over it. If we had a player with let’s say, the ability of Gary Harkins roaming the midfield, then that could have been a huge difference on the park and may well have been the missing piece of the puzzle.
I’m not trying to take anything away from the players in the middle who I think did the job they set out to do and did it well but the lack of game changers in our side seem to be next to none this season compared to last.
The most obvious thing is the lack of penetration of the Celtic defence. Let’s be honest, their defence is full of internationals and when you pit our untested forward line against them, they were naturally going to come out the victors. This was evident in the fact we only had a few shots all game.
In all honesty, our forward line was playing together for the first time, and up against the champions of Scotland. They were always going to find it tough.
Looking at the positives, playing two up front was a massive improvement for Dundee with Faissal El Bakhtaoui looking more comfortable with having another player beside him. Yordi Teijsse took a lot of pressure off his partner by chasing down any loose balls and throwing his weight around. It was great to see him used as a target man and I was extremely surprised to see him win plenty of headers against defenders with much more height than him. He still looks extremely raw but if he and El Bakhtaoui can work on playing beside each another then they definitely have potential.
Also, if El Bakhtoui keeps running down defenders the way he does, he will force players in lesser teams to make mistakes and will grab a goal or two through this.
Our defence also looked solid minus the one lapse in concentration that gifted them the winner. Celtic was mostly reduced to long range shots despite the amount of possession they had in this match. Darren O’Dea was his usual dependable self while Kevin Holt produced another performance that was another improvement on his maiden season with us. I did think that Cammy Kerr did okay though, there was a few mistakes here and there but he is still learning his trade.
The team as a whole also looked liked that they knew which role they were supposed to play. The past few weeks have seen some players running about, leaving areas exposed but at the weekend it looked like they knew and were comfortable with the job they were given.
A special mention goes to Kevin Gomis who has slotted in well beside O’Dea in the centre. On Saturday he was excellent and despite being outpaced a few times here and there, some of his tackles were superb. He was calm and relaxed on the ball and though sometimes this caused me to have a few heart in the mouth moments, he has been an excellent acquisition.
It was great to see the manager change it and even better to hear that he will be keeping it this way as the last formation was bamboozling for the players. A more stable formation will hopefully work wonders for us as would being able to work on linking up the midfield with attack.
At the end of the day though, we suffered our third defeat in a row and are now in the midst of a seven games winless streak. The good news is that this league is still tight and a few wins here and there could potentially see us move away from the relegation and play-off places. The next couple of games will be extremely hard for the team but they should be going into them with a new found approach and belief that they can get a result.
There is no game this weekend as the international break kicks in but it will give the team a chance to forget about how their recent form has been and give them a chance to work on the new set up.
Speaking of the international break, Scotland face Lithuania at home before travelling to take on Slovakia in what will be two very tough games. I’ve said previously that I’m not a fan of the boss Gordon Strachan, his squad selections or formations, but I will still be cheering the team on. I doubt we will get six points here but if we did, it would certainly raise the expectation levels within the ranks of the supporters like myself who don’t have much hope for this World Cup campaign.
MON THE DEE!
