McCann ravages Dundee flops after cup exit
Shankland shows his worth to sink McCann’s men
NEIL McCANN last night hammered his shambolic nine-man Dundee side — and admitted they were flattered by only losing 3-0 to Championship side Ayr.
Lawrence Shankland sent McCann’s men spinning out of the Betfred Cup on an embarrassing afternoon for the disjointed Dark Blues.
Shankland struck a secondhalf double prior to Michael Moffat’s late clincher as Ian McCall’s side out-performed their Premiership opponents. Dundee were badly let down by Sofien Moussa and Genseric Kusunga, with both players having lost the plot towards the end after their dismissals. McCann (left) said: ‘It was really poor from Moussa and Gensy. I told Moussa he can’t make silly fouls, especially the one where he dives down to make a tackle when he’s already on a yellow. This is a very dangerous game and he’s lost his composure. Gensy lost his composure at the end and is banned for next week which adds insult to injury.
‘Moussa being sent off has had a great impact on the game. But on the whole our performance had a greater one.
‘Ayr were very good. I think 3-0 flattered us, to be honest. It’s unacceptable.’
ECSTATIC Ian McCall watched Lawrence Shankland come back to haunt Dundee — then insisted only the ill-informed would dare cast doubt over his ability to cut it in the top flight.
Shankland showed Neil McCann’s side what they were missing after the Tayside club had a bid rejected for the in-demand striker, who has been on fire since the new season got underway.
McCall is succeeding in getting the best out of former Aberdeen ace Shankland, who gave yet another indication of his predatory prowess with a decisive secondhalf double prior to Michael Moffat’s late clincher, as the visitors made a mockery of their lower-league status to send their Premiership hosts out of the competition.
Dundee, who are desperately crying out for a killer instinct in the final third, were seriously let down by both Sofien Moussa and Genseric Kusunga, who lost the plot towards the end with their respective dismissals to compound their early-season misery.
Ayr, who have yet to lose over 90 minutes this season, can now look forward to today’s quarter-final draw, while Dundee must surely be fretting deep down over their run of results of late, which includes back-to-back league defeats.
That, though, was of little interest to McCall, who launched a staunch defence of his prolific forward in the hope of finally killing off lingering question marks over Shankland’s suitability to perform at the highest level.
McCall said: ‘Lawrence will score goals against anybody. Only people who don’t know anything about football will ask whether he can score goals against Premiership opposition.
‘We’ve already turned down two or three bids for him. I think the board of directors are desperate to keep him, so we’ll just wait and see.
‘He’s just disappointed that he didn’t get a hat-trick. When we went in 0-0 at half-time, we wondered if we would live to regret that because we did have chances in the first half.
‘But, in the second half, we did exactly the same thing and got the opening goal through Lawrence.
‘We felt Dundee kept the ball well but, in the final third, that killer instinct wasn’t there, while for us it’s always there.
‘In saying that, Neil (McCann) must have been going off his head at their big striker Moussa.
‘I heard him saying that he had to watch because he could have been off for the one which got him his first booking, and then he goes and gets another yellow.
‘It’s just crazy stuff but we are delighted to be through to the quarter-finals and will see what it throws up.’
New Dundee signing Benjamin Kallman was on the bench having signed the day before on loan from Inter Turku in an effort to solve their scoring woes.
Adil Nabi and Craig Wighton both started following their 1-0 league defeat to Aberdeen the previous weekend, while Moussa dropped to the bench.
For their Championship visitors, Shankland was entrusted with leading the line and he did not disappoint in the slightest.
Nabi was eager to impress and his speculative free-kick from distance ensured Ross Doohan, the visiting keeper, had to be vigilant. Midway through the first half, he wasn’t far away with a curling effort from 25 yards.
Ayr ought to have taken the lead in 38 minutes. Andy Murdoch latched on to Moffat’s cut-back after he had dispossessed Kharl Madianga.
Murdoch’s shot was heading for the top corner until home goalkeeper Jack Hamilton tipped it over for a corner.
Dundee couldn’t be just as poor after the break. Kallman was thrown on but it was Shankland who struck when it mattered most. A thunderous kick downfield by Doohan caught out the Dundee defence and Shankland pounced to hammer a left-foot finish from 12-yards past Hamilton.
This should have spurred the hosts on but they looked lost with little attacking purpose nor penetration.
Moussa, their much-maligned Tunisian forward, was like a man possessed when he came on, failing to control his anger which led to a 67th-minute booking for a foul on Daniel Harvie, before losing it altogether with a barge on Mark Kerr ten minutes later which earned a second yellow card.
Shankland’s close-range finish from Harvie’s cross in 86 minutes ensured victory, before Moffat converted with a six-yard strike a minute from the end, prior to Kusunga’s shocking challenge on him for which he received a straight red card.
It has been a miserable seven days for Kusunga after his handball gave Aberdeen their winning penalty the previous weekend.
Once more, Dundee’s players left the field to a chorus of boos from their fed-up supporters, who have been forced to endure three straight defeats already this season.
McCann’s under-performers head to McDiarmid Park next weekend to face St Johnstone and can ill-afford another loss, even at this early stage in proceedings.