James McPake spoke to the broadcast media on Friday morning ahead of this weekend’s match with Hearts at the Kilmac Stadium. Kick-off is 3pm on Saturday.
The manager and his staff are having to deal with an injury crisis in the build-up to the match that has, along with Ryan Sweeney’s suspension, meant the squad is down to bare bones.
The manager said “We are racking our brains to get 11 players on the pitch. We’ll find 11 players and we’ll find a system that can compete with Hearts.”
“That’s what we need to do. We’ll stick together. We are a resilient bunch. It’s a testing time for the football club at the minute over the last couple of days with the injuries but every club has faced it so I’m not crying about it. We have to find 11 players and if it’s 11 players and 1 sub or 11 players and 2 subs then we’ll go ahead and give everything to try and get a positive result for Dundee Football Club.”
Even with so many first-team players set to miss out, James is unable to call on many youngsters as the majority of those signed with the club are out on loan at other clubs and unavailable. He continued, “We made a call at the start of the season to get them out on loan from their own development. We had a big squad and looking back even a few weeks ago there were senior players missing out on squads, now all of a sudden we are down to this.”
“A lot of the youth players, even the younger ones are out on loan so we can’t use them, hence the reason we have sometimes only had six subs this season.”
“That’s a decision we made as a club as a whole from the very top right through to the academy, discussion was had because we believe when they come back they’ll be in a better place to play for Dundee after getting experience.”
“At a time like this I wish we had them but you can’t make those decisions knowing this is going to happen. We’ll find the players who can go out there and we’ll find a team that can compete.”
Stats | Dee Archive
This Saturday is the 115th League meeting at home between the clubs.
The Dee has a much better record at home than we do at Tynecastle with 50 victories to Hearts 36.
Since the turn of the millennium, in 18 home games vs Hearts, it’s five wins, five draws, and seven defeats.
Doug Cowie and Barry Smith both hold the most appearances (23) against the Jam Tarts.
Robert Hamilton, who played for Dundee between 1910-14, has scored the most goals with 10.
Our memory match won’t take us too far back.
Hearts visited the Kilmac Stadium back in 2021, eight points ahead of us in the league.
Dundee however, took the game to Hearts straight away and were well-deserved winners of the match by three goals to one.
You can view the match profile/report and highlights here: https://www.deearchive.co.uk/matchdetails.php?id=5399
Stats produced by The Dee Archive, most comprehensive record of Dundee Football Club history available anywhere on the web
Ticket Information
Tickets are on sale for this Saturday’s match with Hearts at the Kilmac Stadium.
They are on sale in the Ticket Office inside Dundee Direct and online – click here
Tickets are priced at –
Adult – £26
Concessions (Senior/Student) – £19
Under 18 – £12
To purchase online – click here
Coverage
For those looking to purchase a pay per view pass of the match, this is available now from our PPV site at the cost of £12.50.
You must register a username and password, then can purchase the event.
Please ensure that you also bookmark this site as you will return to watch the match on this platform.
The link to the PPV site is – https://ppv.dundeefc.co.uk/register
Due to a change in regulations, we are now unable to provide coverage to those within England.
You will be unable to sign up with an English I.P.
Occasionally some outwith England will be given an English I.P.
If you are in Scotland and unable to sign in due to this, please contact with proof that you are in Scotland before 1.30pm if you want to be able to watch the match.
If you require any technical support or help logging in, please contact [email protected]
We will have updates on our Twitter page with a full match replay, highlights, and post match interviews on DeeTV after.
