The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Dee blow as Forster hit by foot injury
Dundee defender Jordon Forster is set for a spell on the sidelines after fracturing a bone in his foot against Hearts on Friday night.
The former Hibs centreback endured a tough time at Tynecastle as the Dark Blues were swept aside by the Jambos.
Trailing 4-1 at the break, Forster was the only man replaced by manager James McPake as he looked to salvage something from the game.
On top of the tactical decision, it has emerged Forster suffered a foot injury in the first half and will now miss Saturday’s home clash with Morton at least.
Also coming off early in the second half was new signing Osman Sow with a tight hamstring.
BossMcPake said: “Osman will be OK for Saturday but Jordon is a bit different. He has a small fracture in his foot so he will miss the Morton game.
“We will get it looked at and assess how long he will be out for. He was probably being too brave for his own good not letting on but that’s the type of character he is. But we will get it right and get him back.”
Meanwhile, McPake has admitted there area number of decisions he would change in hindsight after watching his side struggle so badly at Hearts on Friday night.
And he’s keen to get back into the dugout as soon as possible to put the result behind the Dark Blues.
He said: “It is easy for me to say now but we had picked a team we felt could go there, be solid and cause Hearts problems.
“It clearly didn’t work so, yes, there’s lots in my head I would change now.”
He added: “It hurts us the same way it hurts everybody. We trained Saturday morning and we trained again yesterday.
“You need to get over it, that’s the one thing you need to do but it was a sore one.
“There was lots in the game we have looked back at that we need to be better
at and we know that. We gave away really poor goals at really poor times in the game as well. As a team we weren’ t what we had become at the tail end of last season and even through pre-season.
“We have watched bits and pieces of it with the lads. Video analysis is a great tool but it is important now that we move on otherwise it will take over you.
“It does take time but we have to work through it.
“Unfortunately we don’t have a midweek game but we need to get over it quickly and put it right on Saturday.”
Friday night’s clash was Dundee’s first league match in front of empty stands because of coronavirus precautions.
Since football restarted after lockdown there have been a number of highscoring matches across Europe and in the UK with matches played behind closed doors.
However, McPake insists there being no crowds in stadiums can’t be used as an excuse for performances like Friday night.
“It doesn’t matter if there are 20,000 at Tynecastle or 200 working there, if you are going to defend the way we defended as a team then
that’s going to happen,” he added.
“We are confident we’ll get it right. It hurts the players as much as anybody else and they are eager to get it right this week.
“We’ve not concerned ourselves with thinking about there being no fans.
“We wish Dens Park was full and putting demands on us this Saturday against Morton – unfortunately that’s not the case.
“It’s an interesting one but Im ’ not so sure. Certainly Friday can’t be put down to no crowd, it was simply down to us not performing as a group – staff, players, everybody.”