Ya Bezzer!

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.

See Hibs have brought in Andrew Shinnie on loan. Have to say I'm quite jealous of that, would have been a great replacement for Stephen Pearson.

EL BAKHTAOUI INCOMING!! I think Dundee are significantly weaker than they were last season and we finished above them so we should hold no fears over them. Except maybe El Bakhtaoui getting his debut goal! Apparently they were lucky to get a point from Hamilton and didn't perform well against Rangers, they also failed to get out of their League Cup group, so they are hardly coming at us as a juggernaut of good form. They were missing McGowan and Duffy yesterday, I'm not sure what there availability will be next week but otherwise I think they look like a fairly mediocre team on paper and I suspect the loss of Hemmings and Stewart are going to be big blows. I think we will have enough to get at least a point and hopefully do better than that. Some teams in this league have better players than us, but Dundee aren't one of them anymore.

Some things are better left unsaid.

Wonder why that would be!

Come on Motherwell in tae this mob! Need a second goal though, hopefully we won't sit back this early in the match.

Make that 12 now.

So far the Premiership season has seen 1 home win out of 11 matches! Partick Thistle are the only team so far with a home victory.

Gary Mackay-Steven available so they say. BTW Greg Stewart, who I think is a superior player to Johnson, went down south for £500,000.

We've actually produced quite a few goalkeepers for other teams if not our selves. Max Currie, Jamie Ewings, Ross Stewart, Alan Martin....all playing in the league system.

You can't just arbitrarily decide to loan a player out though. You need to find a club who are looking to bring someone in and where he is likely to get match time. There are a lot of promising young players and experienced old hands at that level already so you need to find the right place for them.

In a way I think this is quite a good fixture for us because there is no hiding and there is will be no sneaking a win or a draw and papering over the cracks. It's perform or die. The key in this match is pretty obvious, we have to keep their full backs pinned back in the full back positions. If we do that Rangers lose a large percentage of their potency. Unfortunately we will need to keep possession of the ball a lot better than we have been doing in order to keep them there, have our wingers in advanced positions and have Tavernier and Wallace thinking twice about playing high up the pitch. We also need a bit of interchanging between wide players and forwards because Rangers are chronic at centre half and are also pretty slow. If we can get say McDonald going wide and Johnson cutting inside that's got to be a good thing. I'm not keen on our current shape or team balance but its difficult to see how to rectify them with Moult out and Pearson gone and not adequately replaced. I think we need to play Lasley here for his experience and someone else along side him. I think Cadden can play more centrally and give us a bit more mobility there as well as being able to compete physically. Ainsworth and Johnson wide and as high up the pitch as possible and give McDonald some support by playing another striker, we've not seen much of Blyth and I'm not sure if he's the right type of player for this match, so I'd even consider giving Mackin a run until Moult is available again. On the other hand Blyth could come in handy at set pieces as Rangers are very poor there. We can get away with our current set up against weaker teams but against Top 6 level teams I think we are going to struggle so I'd go 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1, whatever you want to call it.

My comparison between Clay and Carswell was because I have now seen Clay 4 times and each time I've seen him he's had absolutely no influence on the game whatsoever. Central midfield was non existent against Kilmarnock and again yesterday. You can point fingers at Lasley if you want, he was also poor yesterday, but he's had a stop start season because of his suspension and he didn't play in the first league match. McHugh didn't play yesterday. Clay has had a run of games now so he's the consistant factor there. I said in the build up to the match that St. Johnstone wouldn't let us get away with an absent midfield like Kilmarnock did and I was proved right. We desperately need to improve in this area of the pitch or my season ticket will have paid for 11, 12, 13 x yesterday and that would be a very poor investment from my point of view. Is it too early to judge Clay's worth as a signing - yes. But it's not too early to point out that contributed nothing of note so far. I sincerely hope he does improve for the sake of the team but having seen what I've seen I'm worried, about the signing of Clay and the midfield in general as neither Clay or McHugh (or Lasley) have impressed me. I also do not understand why Clay was signed in the first place when we already had McHugh and Lasley in the squad. We are crying out for a direct, running attacking midfield to replace Pearson. Pearson scored more goals last season than Clay has in his entire career. So far we've got by this season with a little bit of individual pace, a little bit of individual skill, usually against weaker opposition, that won't see us through a full season. I'd expect us to improve in the forward areas when Moult returns but I'm still wondering where the central midfield improvement comes from. If you don't compete in central midfield you'll lose 8 or 9 out of 10 and there's the problem right there. Players old and new will have to step up but I'm telling you right now so far we have been very, very poor in the centre of the park.