Dundee Utd 0
Hibernian 0
League (Premier Division)

Manager's Programme Notes

A very warm welcome back to Tannadice this afternoon for what appears destined to be very much the Premier League clash of the day when Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen are our visitors. The new Dons boss fell heir to one of the country's most talented squads when he succeeded Billy McNeill at Pittodrie during the close season and, judging by their racing start to this term, the north-east men appear determined to better their brave challenge for honours of last season. Only Aberdeen and, of course, champions Rangers were ahead of us in the Premier race last season and naturally we here at Tannadice are equally determined to better our position in the season ahead. We ourselves are currently sitting in a position of having taken a point from each of our openers against Hibs (home) and Partick Thistle (away), with surely the best yet to come from our reshaped side. It most certainly should have been a maximum reward from our clash with Hibs with yet again our finishing department shouldering most of the blame for the fact that our Easter Road visitors escaped with a share.

Again, at Firhill last Saturday, the fact that we were unable to take full advantage of our first-half domination cost us another point. The big difference for me during that first 45 minutes last weekend was that it was not solely bad finishing but bad luck which prevented the interval scoreline from reflecting a true picture of the proceedings. However, as good as we were during that period of sustained pressure, against Thistle, raactly the opposite was the case when the side was given an extra outing in the Forfarshire Cup semi-final against Forfar Athletic here on Tuesday night. The fixture was arranged with the prime objective of offsetting our absence from the early stages of the League Cup —and tuned out to be something of a flop. In fact, I would go as far as to say that the display was probably one of the worst since I came to Tannadice almost seven years ago. Very little went right despite our 1-0 win. Nevertheless, it did give new striker Derek Frye a further opportunity to settle in, a job he is completing much faster than I could have dared hoped a fortnight ago. Having stated that his signing was indeed a gamble at the time I am nevertheless convinced that on the evidence of his displays so far, it could well be a winning gamble. However, it's not hard to see that we require not one but two forward thinking players - urgently. If this can be achieved by virtue of player-swop deals in the future then it might be possible.