Outburst from McGowan a real word to the wise

TO call a spade a spade has been a trademark of Paul McGowan’s career.

If there’s such a thing as a foul-mouthed breath of fresh air then the Dundee midfielder hit the mark after a weekend loss at Ayr.

After just one win in five games and conceding 15 goals in four away games, he’d had his fill and let rip.

The transcript of his post-match Somerset Park rant is a collector’s item for football as such blunt honesty is so rare.

For once, language usually confined to the dressing room was unleashed into the public forum and the cliches were binned.

Here’s a snapshot of a five-minute tirade after the 2-0 defeat. He said: “It was s***e basically.

“To concede a goal after two minutes, what chance are we giving ourselves?

“There are a lot of passengers in this team. I’m not just singling out other people, I include myself in that.

“We are happy to go training and then turn up on a Saturday and it’s always ‘somebody else do something’.

“In training it’s like f*****g three, four, five players wanting the ball and all knocking it about but we go there and start humping it long.

“It’s f*****g horrible, I wouldn’t even pay to watch that – that’s not what we are doing during the week. It’s like we get a pure nervousness in our game. Honest to God…”

The unwritten rule to never throw teammates under the bus was cast to the wind as McGowan spoke from the heart, forgotten in a whirlwind of expletives and brutal assessments of what’s wrong at Dens.

More power to him for it, players who switch off their emotion the minute a microphone is there are the norm.

Industrial language aside, more should be encouraged to show they care.

Those who pretend to be on mobiles as they exit stadiums should take a leaf out of the McGowan book of speaking your mind.

The trend is for players to jump on Twitter, the emojis and attempts to ingratiate themselves to fans with the usual guff after games is a bit of a con.

As an ex-pro I know the norm is for players to head home with a ‘nothing to do with me’ mentality for results. It’s a selfish mentality built within the professional athlete, which can be the very reason they’ve managed to emerge within the sport. So

There are problems at the very core of the club and Paul called it like it is

there’s an irony there. Dundee’s plight is clear for all to see. There are problems at the very core of the club and for McGowan to come out and call it like it is can be the catalyst for something better.

Gary Neville once said this after Manchester United were hammered by Everton.

He said: “If you’ve got weeds in the garden you’ve got to get rid of them but there is some Japanese knotweed at that football club and it’s attacking the foundations.”

It was a bit more Oxford than McGowan speak but they were both speaking the same language - bin the bad apples or a club starts to rot.

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