With Dundee’s relegation now confirmed, attention has already turned to next season and life in the Championship.
The Dark Blues are determined to come back up at the first time of asking with boss Jim McIntyre stating he believes he is still the right man to help the club do just that despite the fact the team has gone down on his watch on the back of a record-equalling 10 defeats in a row.
Managing director John Nelms is in the States this week for scheduled talks with owner Tim Keyes and as things stand, the manager will still be in his post at the start of the next campaign.
Dundee fans though are adamant they want change in the Dens Park hot-seat.
Whether that pressure ultimately sways Keyes remains to be seen but one thing that is certain is whoever is manager at the start of next season will have a huge squad rebuilding job on his hands.
McIntyre brought in a whole host of loan players in January and you would have to assume that they would all be returning to their parent clubs once the final two games of this season to forget for Dundee fans is completed:
Keeper Seny Dieng – Queens Park Rangers
Winger Andy Dales – Scunthorpe United
Midfielder Andreas Hadenius – Halmstads
Full-back James Horsfield – Scunthorpe United
Midfielder Ethan Robson – Sunderland
Winger Scott Wright – Aberdeen
Winger John O’Sullivan – Blackpool
Centre-half Ryan McGowan – Bradford
Two other Dundee players, James Vincent and Faissal El Bakhtaoui, have just returned to Dens after loan spells at Dunfermline but are almost certain not to be offered new deals by Dundee while Kerr Waddell who was farmed out to Morton, is also out of contract this summer.
Of the remaining first-team players at the club, several are in similar position including Elliott Parish, Darren O’Dea, Jesse Curran, Martin Woods, Cammy Kerr, Genseric Kusunga and Paul McGowan although the last two are understood to have options for a further year.
The players who definitely have deals for next season are keeper Jack Hamilton, long-term injury victims Andrew Davies and Josh Meekings, full-back Nathan Ralph along with strikers Craig Curran, Andrew Nelson and Kenny Miller.
Queen of the South’s Josh Todd has already been signed on a pre-contract by McIntyre and will join the club next season.
However, there will certainly have to be many more arrivals over the summer with recruitment absolutely key if Dundee are to have any hope of winning promotion out of the notoriously-tough Championship.
This season, the hiring and firing of players at Dens has been haphazard at best with McIntyre dispensing with a whole host of previous boss Neil McCann’s signings before bringing in his own.
Incredibly, only one player – Cammy Kerr – started Dundee’s first league game of the season at St Mirren as well as Saturday’s match at Dens against Hamilton that ultimately consigned the Dark Blues to the drop.
