And there was me thinking that a good break in June would allow any and all niggles to heal setting things up nicely for a tough pre-season. But no, a pulled calf hung around for about 8 weeks, then a knee ligament injury came, went away, then flared up again triggering an x-ray and soon (hopefully) an MRI scan.
But enough about me 😄what about United????
The current state of play is:
Graham (hamstring torn off bone? back November)
Strain (hamstring injury: 6 weeks)
Trapanovski (hamstring injury: 6 weeks)
Pappoe (ankle ligaments: 6 months, loan cancelled)
Nammo (injury not specified, supposedly back 'soon')
Fatah (been out 3 weeks, just coming back, behind on fitness)
Watters (unwell, back Thursday seemingly)
Sapsford (ankle, out for 4 weeks)
You could also add in Jort who had a pulled calf, missed the entire pre-season then was sold).
The million-dollar question is of course: Are we just really unlucky? Or could the club be doing something different to prevent these injuries from happening? You could argue that most of these injuries have occurred during games and therefore we've simply been unlucky. However, the fact that all bar one of these injuries are strains suggests that there is something we are doing that is putting players at risk. Jim Goodwin's, "This will be the hardest pre-season, you have ever done," comment on one of the pre-season videos seems pretty ill-judged since the nature of the injuries appear linked to fatigue and have shades of the various injuries Tottenham had last season under Big Ange. It's also worth noting that Graham clearly didn't appear to get over his hamstring injuries of last season and Strain and Trapanovski also both had hamstring injuries last season. Meanwhile, Fatah clearly was chucked into playing friendlies when he hadn't really done any pre-season (as were Watters, Dolcek and Kerestes) due to being signed weeks into the summer).
Why are these injuries happening?
Are players being over-trained?
Are players being poorly treated?
Are players playing catch-up fitness wise due to being signed later in the pre-season then picking up injuries due to playing friendlies when they are not actually fully fit?
United should see if there is any tax-free R & D funding available to investigate the causes...
He didn't say much of any substance when he was SEVCO Manager but early on I remember Philippe Clement criticizing Rangers players poor strength and conditioning saying players had a lack of robustness. Their muscles weren't strong enough to shrug off challenges which meant too many of them were picking up injuries. I must admit I thought there was something in that. Could this be applied to United?
Whatever the answer is, the squad United have is far too light. The subs bench is full of academy players, most of whom, the manager clearly doesn't rate or trust to play in competitive games bar Sam Cleall-Harding and Owen Stirton. It's not like the laddies didn't get a chance during pre-season either but their introduction usually coincided with us turning winning positions and good performances into draws or defeats.
We were told we'd be likely be signing two new players before the Falkirk game. Two weeks and three, long-term injuries later no-one has been signed and players look fucked already as a dwindling number of first-team players struggle with playing Thursday-Sunday, whilst barely doing any training and travelling abroad.
Is there a budget for more players? I've heard an awful lot of rumours about our budget for this season not being great and the Chairman believing that we can repeat last seasons heroics on a similar shoestring.
Wheeler Dealer Masterclass
The big frustration is that the club, specifically the Goodwin's, look like they have done a brilliant job with their recruitment on a tight budget. When you think of previous United managers recruitment, we had some who basically did no scouting whatsoever and just took whoever was on the SPFL released list (McKinnon), others who just appeared to look at YouTube videos (McNamara) and others who always required signings to fit some sort of 'angle' and got no value for money (Neilson/Ross/Fox *Asghar). There has been a clear plan of looking for players who were more mobile, athletic and could play a more high tempo, pressing style. It has also been a good mixture of loans and permanent signings, and many of the loans have options to buy which have given the signings more longevity. When you look at the state Dundee have got themselves into by filling their team with loans in the last two seasons having a bit of certainty that the majority of the players we have signed are likely to be here for the next 2-3 seasons (if they do well) is a decent strategy. Many are internationals and are a good age.
Obviously, much has been made of them all being foreign. But, lets dig into that a bit deeper. 1. There's no decent Scottish goalkeepers just now. Liam Kelly chose to sit on Rangers bench most weeks sacrificing not only his own playing career, but his international prospects too. Zander Clark turned us down a few years ago and is now number 1 at Hearts. John McCracken is back in as Number 1 at Dundee but is pish and was sent away by Scotland last season because they thought there was something wrong with him because he was so bad. Ross Doohan came through the ranks at Celtic, left to get games knowing he'd never be first or even second choice then bizarrely chose to re-sign for Celtic and sit on the bench every week. Another one, like Kelly who has chosen to 'live the dream' at the expense of his own career and the Scottish national team. The boy Slicker at Ipswich looked like he was on some sort of 'Make-a-Wish' excursion when he played for Scotland and wouldn't get a game in the Juniors, let alone Dundee United. Finally, Scott Bain fucking hates United and chose to sign for Falkirk and looked pretty pish first game of the season so no great loss.
2. There's no decent Scottish right backs in a our price range so getting Nammo (a Finland u21 international) was decent business. He can play a few positions too and if you watched him when he did play, he's very similar to Aaron Hickey, two footed and a very tidy footballer. We were seemingly interested in centre halves like Joe Wright who signed for Bradford, whilst Stuart Findlay signed for Hearts so we had no chance on that one.
3. Moving further forward, what were the Scottish midfield options available? Drey Wright? Jordan McGhee? Liam Donnelly? Na yer alright. What about strikers? Brian Graham? Stevie May? Greg Kiltie? Pish journeymen jobbers in other words. If that's all that's on offer of course you are going to go for value for money, technically better foreign players. Looking at boys we've signed like Big Bert, Dolcek and Pappoe, they appear to be light years above what we could have signed from Scotland. Even the better ones we showed interest in like Joe Wright and Danny Armstrong chose to go abroad or down south to the lower leagues because we simply can't complete with the sums they are offering. When you also add in Scottish players upping their wage demands to due to higher rates of Income Tax in Scotland compared to England the whole thing just becomes unaffordable if you want to build a decent team. Whilst I personally don't have a problem paying a higher rate of tax if it is going to be spent on improving public services, modern footballers are not exactly well known for their sense of social responsibility and are just going to demand higher wages to make try to make up the difference. It appears the foreign lads are less aware of this difference, again making them a more attractive investment.
It's a shame for Steve Clarke but until something is done about the quality of young Scottish players coming through and young Scottish players, parents and agents forcing moves to English academies at the first whiff of interest rather than staying in Scotland and playing 100 games (like Lennon Miller did) before getting a proper big move. The laddies that move appear to just want the cash upfront for 4-5 years hanging around playing academy football. £6 grand a week seems to be the figure for many of them. Mental to think that five years doing this at 6k a week is over £1.5 million paid for effectively going nowhere with your career and playing glorified boys games in front of 2 men and a dog. Just goes to show English football is insanely awash with cash to the point that you could set fire to millions KLF-style and no-one down there would notice. But most of these Scottish boys end up doing nothing with their careers down South and even when they come up here on loan they struggle with the competitive nature of proper men's games rather than the consequence-free, tippy-tappy nature of English academy u21 and u23 football.
Anyway, so far the keeper looks.... interesting. You know how people called Szamotoulski the Mad Monk because of the bald head and mental demeanor? Well the new keeper actually appears to play like Jason Statham did in Mean Machine.
Iouvo looked really good until he had to mark someone. That needs to be ironed out pronto. For a boy who is about 6ft 5, he needs to be more aggressive in the air too. He was repeatedly beaten in the air by MacIver in the Falkirk game and his lack of tight marking in the Hearts game for the 2nd and 3rd goals was amateurish. He's clearly got all the tools to be a decent player and it is not coincidence has done fine in Europe but in the more aggressive Scottish games has been found a bit wanting.
Big Bert just looks class. Think Miodrag Krivokapic, Gordan Petric, Siggi Jonsson etc. Cool as fuck on the ball, never looks flustered. Sexual chocolate and hos song is ace. As does Kerestes. It'll be interesting to see what happens if Ross Graham ever gets fit.
Camara is another interesting player and I suspect will be a bit of a Marmite figure veering from looking like prime Patrick Viera to Carlton Palmer in the blink of an eye. He never hides to be fair and I suspect he'll be a real asset in the the more pace and power-dominated Scottish games but will be found wanting at times in the European games due to his touch and passing not being brilliant.
Pappoe was one of those players that as soon as I saw him at Arbroath, within a minute I thought, "He's quality." It's not quite translated into the competitive games as yet (although he was better against Falkirk) and it maybe never will sadly due to his injury. Shame, he has that Gomis/Fuchs low centre of gravity build and his passing was excellent.
I was sent a reel of Dolcek playing in Croatia and thought, he canna be signing for us, he looks immense. Then I watched him play against Straasen and had a think about the selectivity of these player highlights reels. However, the last two games in Vienna and on Sunday against Hearts has brought my original impression of him back to the forefront of my mind. Absolute class, knows where the goal is. If we can get him and those around him fit so he is playing in a more advanced position we could have a potential match-winner on our hands.
Too early to judge Fatah.
Watters could do with losing a few pounds but appears to know where the goal is, much like Dalby. Give decent strikers service and they score. Amazing.
Someone on Twitter asked if Sapsford was good or not. He's another crowd-splitter. My take was: He works hard, stretches teams but he is very raw and some technical elements are poor (his first touch) and his decision making. He's been chucked into the team out of necessity due to our lack of strikers when he should have been introduced gradually. In the Falkirk game too many things broke down when he got the ball, but you can't argue with his two goals so far. The Vienna one will go up there in the list of all-time great United goals. Again, like Camara and Iouvo, if he was the finished article he wouldn't be at United.
The Bermuda Triangle of Luxembourg
Someone is going to have to explain to me one day how a country that is bordered by Belgium, Germany and France could be the most inaccessible place on Gods Earth. No direct flights (from Scotland anyway), trains that only go so far then require bus journeys or several changes. I wonder if the reason why no cunt has ever been able to conquer the place is because it's fucking impossible to get to it???
Under pressure from the young lad who was desperate for a European trip I booked up. Initially I booked a return flight to Paris which seemed not too bad price wise and I thought would be easy enough to get to Luxembourg. Against my better judgement, I took advice from the wife who said, if you get cancellation insurance you can cancel the flights. However, although I was able to get to Luxembourg via a train to Metz then a Flix Bus to Luxembourg, getting back was simply impossible. I was able to to get the train refunded but not the bus because Flix Bus are a shower of cunts. And of course, the wife was blethering a load of absolute shite and unless someone died or something and I could produce a death certificate, I wasn't getting back the money paid for the Paris flights. Guess who will be paying off the credit card bill for the next 5 months. Thankfully, with some better advice I booked a much cheaper flight into Weeze which is a wee airport north of Dusseldorf. Our journey would then involve a 1 hour bus journey to Dusseldorf and a 4 hour train journey to Luxembourg and the same coming back. I thought this wasn't too bad when you saw some of the journey's Arabs were taking, changes a Stanstead, flights to Milan, Bergamo, Brussels, Amsterdam, Metz, Frankfurt often followed by length bus journeys, hired cars, buses, donkey rides. Mental.
A 2am start for me on the Wednesday and a 3am departure. The drive was diverted through Fife due to road closures but other than a wrong turn going to the airport parking all was fine. Hand luggage only so quickly though security and onto the standard airport pint and breakfast. The airport had plenty of arabs in it, each of whom was taking a different route. I had expected the flight to Weeze to be half empty, not expecting any other United supporters to be taking the same route. How wrong was I. The plane was rammed with Shed Boys and Girls. It was one of those flights where you were no sonner up in the air and you are back down again. Being a small airport Weeze didn't waste time needlessly holding us in a Brexit queue and we were through in 15 minutes. Another pint then onto the shuttle bus for an hour into Dusseldorf. Tbh it felt a lot longer as the passengers had to listen to a group of young rockets (Utd supporters) with no filter on their mouths talk a load of drug and drink addled shite for the entire journey. "F this and C that", "wha's drank meh f'n vodka?", "he's got loads of johnnies full of gear up his arse," "Wha's stunk that toilet oot, Eh'm going for a wee whip," etc. Braeview's finest. Although they could have been from anywhere. Working in my job I know for a fact all the schools in Dundee are full of them. I'm not against young laddies and lassies having a good time but you've just landed in a foreign country, in a quiet place and immediately start acting like utter gadgies on a bus full of locals who looked petrified. A couple of laddies who were in their group sitting near us were pretending to be asleep the whole journey so they didn't have to speak to them which tells it's own story. Maybe I'm a boring old fart but to me, it wasn't funny, it was embarrassing, in any country.
We had about 90 minutes to kill in Dusseldorf so a Lukas Podolski kebab was purchased (essential according to the young lad who scoffed the lot, I thought it was fucking bogging) and a couple of pints whilst marvelling at the train station, food outlets everywhere and about 20 platforms all well signposted and immaculate. A change from the shiteholes in Scotland for sure. The journey down to Luxembourg was basically down the side of the Rhine and provided some beautiful scenery. I made the mistake of not buying a carry out for the train unlike the other arabs around us thinking I'd be buckled by the time I got to Luxembourg. It made for a pretty long journey even if the boys around us were a good laugh (a bit too much politics/immigration chat for my liking though).
The Luxembourg buses took a wee bit of working out but once you did they were brilliant. Free as well. A lesson there somewhere. We were meeting the Alkmaar squad at the Britannia, one of the pubs suggested as being fan friendly beforehand. The journey gave us the chance to have a look at the city of Luxembourg which it has to be said, was beautiful. Tree's and bridges everywhere as the main part of the city is in amongst all these gorges. More United supporters kicking about than on Scottish Cup Final day. And as the young lad pointed out, virtually every one of them seemed to be wearing a different replica top from the past 40-odd years. E-Bay must've had a field day. Either than or people's ;loftf must just be full of United strips. I opted for my paint splatter 1993-94 reissue and the young lad had the green away top from two seasons ago. The Britannia was a decent boozer and wasn't as Rangers orientated as the name would suggest (even though we were actually watching their game on the tv). I commented that this (and the Pyg which it tuned out was about 100 yards down the road) were decent enough and would be fine for watching the game since the young lad and I didn't have tickets (thanks to that shitey website. I was in, had seats selected then it wouldn't let me buy them before kicking me out 5 minutes later).
"So, you'll not be wanting tickets if they're available then?"
"Eh?"
"I can get you tickets, there's two comps available, for free."
"....."
"I'll get the drinks in!"
Suffice to say a good night was had from there. The Pyg was fucking jumping. A certain ex-Dundee Chairman getting a fair bit of stick in lots of the songs and well as the Bert Esselink chant being on repeat. The young lad's reply to a text asking if he was having a good time was simply: "Class".
Unfortunately trying to navigate the Luxembourg buses is a lot easier when you are sober compared to half past midnight and the two of you are absolutely pissed and knackered. We also tried Uber which always looks easier when the wife is doing it. Unfortunately we had took a wrong turn and walked up a hill and ended up in the middle of nowhere. The Uber app kept telling us to to walk several hundred yards to a direction that we had no idea where. Just fucking pick us up where we are FFS! Anyways, a bus finally came past and we jumped on more in hope than expectation. Luckily the young lads intuition was good and it took us back to the city centre where we were than able to get one that took us back to close to our accommodation for the back of 1.
Onto game day then. Remember when I said there were no flights into Luxembourg? Well there are. And they start at 6am. And they arrive at 10 minute intervals. And they fly right over where we were staying. I managed to doze until about the back of 8. I made the point to the young lad at breakfast that we should do some sort of sightseeing tour since we'd never come back to Luxembourg again and I didn't want his first European trip to consist of the inside of pubs. We booked a wee train tour (think the wee dinky toy one that used to take you around Arbroath 😄) and headed out around the city, specifically the Old Town. It's a lovely place and I got a few great photos. Can't say I learned much from the tour other than Luxembourg became a Grand Dutchy are the request of the King of Holland, that the French, Austrians, Prussians and the Dutch have all controlled it at some point or another and that there was a King Wenceslas from Luxembourg who I am assuming is the one in the song. (Just checked Wikipedia and he was King of Germany, Bohemia and Duke of Luxembourg, none of which they said on the tour).
Onto the main square to a meet up. Carry out's were the order of the day. What a few of us noticed was the Utd supporters were all a bit subdued compared to Amsterdam and Alkmaar a few years ago. On closer inspection you could see arabs in the square all had one thing in common: they all looked fucking knackered. The travelling of the last few days had clearly taken a toll (especially added to a night on the drink for most). However, by the time we got to Differdange and then the game it was clear people had got their second wind and it was fucking jumping in the stadium (mini-Meadowbank more like).
I felt a lot more comfortable watching the away tie compared to the first leg where it all felt very flat and nervy. It's clear everyone expected us to roll them over and because it didn't happen, the initial burst of noise and enthusiasm in the stands died down and the whole thing felt a bit flat unlike the Alkmaar game where it was clear that because they were a good side that the support needed to constantly roar the team on. Whilst we weren't under any major pressure at home to Strassen they had long spells of possession whilst we were struggling to retain the ball for any length of time. Pappoe (who had looked good in pre-season) had a bit of a mare and looked a bag of nerves. Sevelj beside him looked like what he is: a defender playing in midfield and the chance he missed kind of summed that up. In a central midfield 3, Sevelj does a lot of dirty work and allows other around him to play. However, in a midfield 2 there's much more of a requirement for midfielders to create as well as break up play and I feel this is where Sevelj gets a wee bit found out. It'll be interesting to see how/where we use him once all our signings are in place and everyone is fit. Our goal in the first leg was probably the only bit of quality in the game. People were praising Trapanovski but personally I thought he was busy but showed no end product whatsoever, frequently choosing the wrong option in good positions. If people want a winger who runs about a lot but never puts a decent ball in we'd have been as well keeping Ilmari Niskannen. Trapanovski's cause wasn't helped in either game by a very subdued-looking Will Ferry. Not sure what's been up with him for the past few months actually but he needs to snap out of it quick, especially since he is now the captain for the foreseeable future (Thankfully home game against rapid seems to have seen the real Ferry reappear).
I thought Strassen looked a bit overawed in the second leg given they were playing at a different venue from their usual home and the majority of the crowd were supporting us.That said, they created most of the chances in the first half (usually due to us giving the ball away cheaply). However, they had absolutely no conviction whatsoever in front of goal and they looked a bit demoralised by this and the ironic cheering when they did miss chances. Sapsford for us should have scored as should Trapanovski in the first half.
In the second half we seemed to have more of the ball but not really do enough with it. Pappoe could have done better with a shot from outside the box but that was about it so it was utter bedlam (I was soaked in beer) when big Iouvo bulleted his header back across the keeper. 2-0, game-set and match. Job done. It was a rare occasion when United supporters were sat right behind the United dugouts. That never happens. Thank fuck we won.
The train back to Luxembourg City was rammed with arabs and it was a good crack, bumping into a few people I'd not seen for years. Despite the pissing rain when we got back we opted for a 30-odd minute walk back to the Pyg, stopping for one one the way. The rest of the night was a blur for me personally and the young lad (who said he had a ball and was fair in and about the sing-songs, great to get to spend a bit of quality time with him) and I woke up back at the room fully clothed with my contact lenses still in. The young lad was there too thankfully. Responsible parenting at it's finest! 😉
Obviously Vienna et al have since happened. A rollercoaster of emotions, more injuries, shite set-piece defending and great goals that require their own entry. Will save that for a rainy day. It's too fucking hot outside.
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