Dundee’s Paul McGowan left no-one in any doubt in the Dens Park press room on Saturday just how much he is hurting at the moment with an expletive-laden outpouring of raw emotion about the current crisis at the club.
Following the latest defeat against Hibs, he branded the team as being “f****** weak minded” but spared no-one from criticism including himself.
The midfielder admits he is thoroughly fed up hearing how good a footballing side Dundee are and instead he is looking for the players to win plaudits for their fighting qualities starting next week when they travel to face Hamilton still looking for their first points of the season.
The 30-year-old said: “I’m honestly sick of saying the same things over and over. It’ll come. This and that . . .
“We’re f****** weak minded as a team. We’re weak minded.
“We played good football in the first half, Hibs rarely threatened us. We looked very good, passing the ball.
“The goal f****** kills us. And that’s just the mentality we’ve got just now.
“When we go a goal down, we f****** crumble. That’s basically it. We crumble.
“OK, that’s maybe just the situation we’re in. Six games in. A couple of wins and we’re back up.
“But I’m just sick repeating the same s**** over and over. I honestly am. I’m banging my head off a brick wall.
“I’ve not been good enough. And none of the players in there have been good enough.
“Nobody in that team has done themselves justice this season. And I include myself.
“I’m hammering myself and I’m hammering everybody.
“We’ve not done anything for the club, we’ve not done anything for the manager.
“We’ve let the fans down. And more importantly we’ve let ourselves down.
“I’m sick of hearing that we’re a good footballing side. That gets you nowhere in this league. It takes guts.
“How many teams, outside Rangers and Celtic, do you see passing and passing to batter teams?
“They don’t. It’s a battle out there. You have to earn the right to play.”
Saturday match summed up Dundee’s season so far.
They held Hibs for the first half and felt they should have had a penalty when Kharl Madianga tumbled in the box but as soon as they conceded just six minutes after the restart, the roof caved in on them.
The impressive Martin Boyle slipped a great pass into Florian Kamberi who calmly steered the ball past Elliott Parish in the Dundee goal.
Four minutes later, former Dark Blues wide man Boyle hit the back of the net himself when he cut in from the right and hit an unstoppable shot into the far corner of the net to double Hibs’ lead.
Dundee’s misery was made complete in the 88th minute when Hibs sub Thomas Agyepong did what Boyle had done earlier, cutting in from the right before sending a low shot past Parish.
Not surprisingly, the full-time whistle was greeted with a chorus of boos from the long-suffering home support.
When asked how Dundee can extricate themselves from this dire situation, McGowan replied: “I believe we can turn it around. I’m not saying we can’t.
“But, at this moment in time, it’s very hard.
“It’s not just the odd goal we’re losing. We’re not keeping clean sheets, we’re not scoring. It’s tough.
“And you can see we’re nervous, right through the team.
“I can feel the fans’ frustration, feel the manager’s frustration.
“I’m not sitting here wanting people to feel sorry for us.
“We’re professional footballers, we’re paid to play football, take criticism, take plaudits when they come.
“At this moment, we deserve every bit of criticism that comes our way because we’ve been nowhere near good enough.
“Listen I am not sitting here bigging myself up because I care. I’ve not been anywhere good enough either.
“We need to grind results out. Hearts grind them out, so do Motherwell. We need to roll our sleeves up. It is not going to be pretty.
“We go to Hamilton next week. It’s only going to get harder.”
As the goals rattled in, the Hibs fans took great delight in chanting that Dundee boss Neil McCann was going to get sacked.
McGowan added: “Who would want to be a manager? Seriously because a couple of results and then they are gone. It’s horrible. You never want to see anyone lose their job.
“But he is still upbeat. He is a strong character, nothing phases him and we go again Monday. He said, ‘I don’t want to see any of your faces down’.
“When you hear that (chanting) it’s not nice but the gaffer has been in the game a long time. It’s just fans. But it is a results business. We are behind him.”
