Dee-bacle in the rain

PLAYERRATINGS Shameful show sees Dee thumped by St Johnstone

THE weather at Dens Park on Saturday might have been miserable but that was nothing compared to the misery Dundee put their fans through in their jaw-droppingly bad 4-0 thumping by St Johnstone.

The only comparison you can make with the level of performance was the 7-0 trouncing by Aberdeen last season. This, however, in some ways was worse. Not just for the nonsense after the final whistle that will no doubt leave manager Neil McCann in trouble with the SFA but for the inability to keep the ball for any amount of time, the inability to create any sort of chance and the shambolic nature of the entire performance.

Yes, Dundee were hampered massively by the absence of influential midfield pair Paul McGowan and Glen Kamara — those two were initially suspended for the Celtic game that was postponed and who knows what Saturday’s performance against the champions would have ended like.

There have been excuses all season for why the Dark Blues haven’t got the points they think they deserved. Missing those two, though, isn’t for how bad this was.

St Johnstone’s gameplan was good and worked a treat but the sad thing was they didn’t even have to work that hard to win easily and, in the end, did Dundee a favour by settling for just four.

I’m sure Tommy Wright’s eyes must have lit up when he saw the opposing team sheet.

Say what you want about Sofien Moussa but the Dark Blues’ lack of an out-ball up to a big man like him on a heavy pitch meant they couldn’t get the ball into St Johnstone’s half for about half an hour.

Since Jack Hendry left, Dundee just haven’t had the personnel to play out from the back. They’ve persisted despite the defence being plainly uncomfortable with it and that’s where it started going downhill.

Saints closed down relentlessly from the start, forcing Dundee’s backline into taking chances they didn’t want to take and giving the ball away all the time with no target up top and a limited midfield to play it into.

In poor conditions to play passing football and without your two best ball-players surely it would have been sensible to just miss out the midfield and play long, direct to Moussa? Not pretty but there’s no prizes for beauty at this stage of the season.

The opening stages anyway were all Saints and they deserved to be 2-0 up by the break, even if they got a bit of luck with youngster Jordan Piggott deflecting in a shot on his debut.

Neil’s selection was baffling. They might have been out of midfielders but Genseric Kusunga has looked OK on the ball and A-Jay Leitch-Smith is clever enough to be able to play midfield, surely. To throw in a young kid for his debut was extraordinary in a game like that.

The manager threw on Moussa at half-time to try to get back into it — harshly hooking skipper Cammy Kerr — and went all-out attack, 4-2-4.

The scoreline shows how well that worked out.

If the on-field show wasn’t embarrasing enough then what happened after the match put the tin lid on it for Dundee.

Video shows Neil McCann refusing to shake the Saints kitman’s hand before sub keeper Zander Clark grabs him and, amid a small scuffle, Neil appears to slap the St Johnstone man, which he has denied.

Whatever the provocation, you just can’t do that — and to then compound it by reports of the manager waiting for the Saints management in the tunnel is an embarrassment to a club like Dundee.