Kmcalpin

Yes some of the players need to take a long hard look at themselves.

Not sure about him. I don't know why he left Tannadice but officially it was down to cuts to playing budget.

It was the right decision and the Directors did have the mettle to do it. Sorry to see anyone lose their job though but our club must come first. Once manager loses the fans its an uphill struggle. We now have to move on and hopefully the players will respond.

Well done to the young lads. A welcome bit of good news for us.

Pretty much agree with that Lobey. All too often he's been our sole outball and opponents can close him down easily. In game after game we've seen 2/3 defenders close him down and Saturday was no exception. Some thought that Pearson would play wide left at the weekend and that was my hope. However somewhat predictably he played deeper and in central midfield - that said he didn't look fit/interested. When Cadden did break he often had to do so without any support. Yes, he may also be carrying an injury.

I can understand it, but don't agree with it as he was perceived to be a hero and a fans favourite but thats not enough. I didn't like the way he left the club as I've written before. In answer to your question, no they wouldn't.

Agree with most of that. However Pearson wasn't really playing wide left at all. As I suspected beforehand we played narrowly with Pearson sitting in left of centre rather than wide left. In short, poor as Chalmers was, he had no-one in front of him. At times he had 2 opponents bearing down on him. Poor as our defence was yesterday our midfield has to shoulder a good part of the responsibility for losing the goals we did.

Seconded. Managers and players come and go but we must support the club.

We have a number of central midfielders but its very much a case of quantity rather than quality. We can't expect young Campbell to carry the others but there's no harm in giving him some game time even as a sub. He proved he can compete when he played in Hamilton. Going over the goals we conceded yesterday yesterday the midfield came out of it very badly.

No options? Lucas, Ferguson, Frear, Griffiths, Hastie? I don't know about Lasley though Allan. At 37 he's way past it, and although he may have brought some enthusiasm to the proceedings the game would have passed him by.

Pre match I was all for giving Mark McGhee until the end of the season but after today's debacle I have changed my mind and think he should be asked to go now. Could things get any worse - I doubt it. Given that he has only a few months left on his contract, I doubt if it would cost much to fire him or put him on gardening leave. It seems as though he's lost the dressing room and now, it seems, most of the fanbase. The Board has to act quickly or it risks turning the fans off big time. I can't recall the last time we had protests outside the ground - maybe in the Malpas era? In the short term we should perhaps install Mr Robinson in temporary charge until the end of the season and take more time to find a successor. Either way, doing nothing is not an option.

An appalling display today which I just didn't see coming. Thank goodness Dundee took their foot off the gas in the second 45. They worked damned hard and looked competitive but that was it. They didn't look anything out of the ordinary. Much criticism has been levelled at Jules and Chalmers and I can understand why. However this was a real team effort. Our midfield, McHugh apart was powderpuff and ineffective. I was hugely disappointed with one of my usual favourites Pearson who along with Clay was anonymous. They gave the young players behind them no support at all and Chalmers suffered more than most in this respect. As I thought, Pearo played in the middle not out wide. Cadden tried hard but suffered from lack of support and was invariably crowded out. I would have thought that McGhee would have made changes at say 3-1 but he chose to wait until far later in the proceedings to bring on Frear. The latter was starved of service but looked promising in flashes although a bit lightweight. Moult and MacDonald tried their best but suffered from lack of service. Would Hammell and Lasley have made much difference - I doubt it. McManus - hard to say but I doubt it. I was wrong about not playing McHugh in defence. He did make a difference when moved there but Dundee did ease off and he was missed in midfield. What was concerning was how most of the the team just crumbled in the first half and it was clear that they just didn't want to be there. That plus a few other telling incidents suggest that the manager has lost the dressing room. A 5-1 hammering, at home, against mediocre rivals just isn't acceptable.

Now 1-1. Penalty conceded by Agent Laing.

Pretty much my thoughts although I'd maybe prefer Chalmers to MacMillan but not a lot in it (Chalmers is left sided MacMillan isn't).

It has to be Jules for me. Otherwise why was he signed on loan? Chalmers at left back, not ideal but our only left sided option. McHugh has to remain in midfield to provide some cover for central defence. I don't think David Ferguson is robust enough for central defence.

Lets take a hypothetical case, in some ways similar to the case of Elliot Frear at Aberdeen. A ball comes to a player at say 30 cms off the ground with an opportunity to shoot at goal. He has a split second to react and, as far as he is aware, there is no opponent adjacent to him (its impractical for him to stop and look around to check). He attempts to whack the ball as hard as he can to beat the keeper. Unfortunately at the last minute a hitherto unseen opponent sticks a leg out and receives a hard boot on the shin just after the first player makes contact with the ball. Is that a red card due to excessive force? Will players be told not to hit the ball too hard in case someone else gets whacked? Are we going to ask players to hold back when tackling in case an opponent is injured? I know its a made up example but my point is that the interpretation of the law now seems to be too complicated and open to debate. Lets not forget that players have a split second to react as do referees.

I'm not sure that it is the most blatant red card going Tweed. Its not quite as clear cut as that. Probably nearer 50/50. As far as analyses go the Scotsman's attempt is not unreasonable although I don't agree with all of it. My point however is that the Scotsman (and other newspapers) don't subject all similar incidents to the same level of publicity and scrutiny. They are very selective about what they cover. By doing this, for reasons articulated by Weeyin, they give rise to a distorted and misleading coverage of Scottish football. The uninitiated or naive reader can easily misunderstand what is going on. Their raison d'etre is to maximise profits for shareholders, not report news objectively, and this is often disguised and concealed by the publications themselves. One element of this is to maximise sales, and in a footballing context, give fans of the bigger clubs what they want to read. One of the most ridiculous footballing articles I've ever read was published some years ago by the Scotsman. It was around the time before Hearts went into administration and had a whopping debt of about £26m. When all around were criticising Hearts and Romanov the Scotsman published an article which defended him and more or less said that this level of debt was a great thing and that every club should do it. What utter nonsense. Even diehard Hearts fans saw it for what it was. Football fans and indeed readers in general need to take what papers print with a large spoonful of salt.

Any update on the club's view of the "revised" proposals? Papers are reporting that Malky Mackay is saying all clubs are now behind the proposals or words to that effect.

Of course and I've no problem with that as long as they're up front about it but they're not and thats what irritates me. Consistency, fairness and objectiveness are simply not factors in their reporting but they pretend that they are. In addition too many journalists allow personal prejudices to colour their work.

It will come to light at some point.

The Scotsman is still at it. http://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/competitions/premiership/why-referee-didn-t-show-red-card-for-foul-on-kieran-tierney-1-4372652 Do they intend to highlight and analyse every similar incident in future? If not why not?

Yes, you're right - apologies for that. I retract much of what I wrote, but my principle assertion that the media have a huge influence over what is picked up still stands.

It just goes to show the power and influence of the media and in particular TV companies. I'd not seen the game before but it must have been a real thrill a second stuff if this controversial incident wasn't deemed worthy of inclusion. Maybe I'm being paranoid but it was one of Scotland's biggest clubs and BBC media darlings at that (Aberdeen) which was involved. Had it been a player at fault from a smaller club, like us, they'd have been all over it like a rash no doubt catching the interest of the Compliance Officer. Sports editors are acting like God here.

Tait was given a single game ban.

A lot is down to media coverage ie what they want to highlight and what they want to conceal. The previous Compliance Offer, Vincent Lunny, said that his staff trawled through TV highlights on a Monday morning to pick up potential cases. So its not an objective unbiased evidence gathering exercise.