Dorrans hails fantastic Finlay as one for the future
Graham Dorrans reckons fabulous Finlay Robertson is destined for the top – and has promised to help him get there.
Dorrans watched on as teenager Robertson dazzled during his first Dundee derby in Friday night’s 1-1 draw with city rivals Dundee United at Tannadice.
The 17-year-old midfielder has been a revelation since manager James Mcpake handed him his big break earlier this season.
Now former Rangers, West Brom and Scotland star Dorrans, who scored a stunning equaliser for the Dark Blues in their televised Tannadice tussle, is backing the rising Dundee ace to make a name for himself and is relishing the prospect of mentoring him all the way.
Dorrans said: “Fin has been great. That was his first derby game and he’s still only 17.
“He’s got a bright future ahead of him.
“When I first came in, he’s one I thought right away had a decent chance.
“He’s got learning to do but he does want to learn. He’s willing to learn and is willing to put the work in.
“If he keeps doing that, he’ll go the right way.
“It’s great for me to be able to help him. At 32, I feel as though I’m the older one in the dressing room.
“But it’s great for me to pass down my experience to younger lads who are 17.
“Fin has composure. He sits there in front of the two central defenders and he screens the ball well. He reads the game well too.
“He’s great on both feet. Sometimes he gets caught on the ball a little too much but, again, he’s only young.
“He has the ability to see good passes.
“That’s what Finlay does so hopefully he keeps on improving and can go on to have a great career.
“I’m sure he’s enjoying it and we’ll see where he goes from here.” Dorrans earned Dundee a point with his classy 50th minute strike after Nicky Clark had given the Tangerines a whirlwind fifth minute lead to prevent a third straight derby-day defeat and stop the Dee falling 20 points behind Robbie Neilson’s Championship pacesetters.
And the ex-norwich and Livingston playmaker has declared himself over his injury hell which blighted his time at Rangers, having left Ibrox in the summer to kick-start his career on Tayside with James Mcpake’s men. Dorrans added: “The boys have been giving me a bit of stick over the past couple of weeks for not scoring. So it’s nice for one to go in here in the derby.
“Seriously, it’s great to be back fit. My aim was to come here and play games, which I’ve done.
“The last couple of years have been really frustrating for me through injury but I’ve now managed about 12 or 13 games on the bounce.
“So any doubts about my injuries are gone now.” Meanwhile, United skipper Mark Reynolds insists the league leaders are gunning for revenge when they head to Palmerston to face Queen of the South, who thrashed them 4-0 back in October.
Reynolds said: “It ended up an absolute doing.
“There are ways of getting beat and sometimes you come away from a defeat and you can kind of accept it.
“But that was unacceptable the manner in which we lost, so we want to go there and put that right.
“We still had a lot of belief that we could go on and do well though. “We had a makeshift team that day. We had boys playing who’d been out and we had a left-back playing right-back. We had a centrehalf playing right-back and basically boys all over the shop.
“So there were other reasons. It wasn’t just a poor performance.
“But since that the boys have come back strongly and we’ve had that kind of continuity.
“We’ve almost had the same starting line-up every week which is a big thing.
“For us, we just keep plugging away and try to win the games in front of us, starting with Queen of the South on Saturday.”