NEW Dundee United head coach Mixu Paatelainen has informed his players that it is they who are to blame for their current Premiership predicament, not former manager Jackie McNamara. The Tannadice side sit rock bottom of the top flight, having won one game all season long, and the new occupant of the manager's office believes his new team need to toughen up if they are to play their way out of trouble. The feisty 48-year-old former Kilmarnock and Finland manager had a watching brief at the club's recent League Cup victory against League One outfit Dunfermline Athletic and feels alarm bells unless they can roll their sleeves up.
"I am critical of the players, not Jackie," said Paatelainen. "I do realise that possibly there quite a few players in the squad who are great footballers and don't maybe relish the hard work and the battle out there. With any successful side, though, you realise they win the battles and have the desire to win one against ones, 50-50s and loose balls. That has to be there first – after that comes the finesse.
"They can't kid themselves on," he added. "The alarm bells are there, ringing loud. What more do you want to see than they are bottom of the league. If somebody is deluded then they have to get a reality check and their attitude must change straight away."
Stephen Thompson, the Dundee United chairman, defended an appointment process which saw the Finn land the job despite the club also asking for permission to speak to St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright and Inverness manager John Hughes. He refuted suggestions that meant the former United player was third or fourth choice.
"The thing that gets me is, just because you approach a club to speak to a manager, doesn’t mean you are going to appoint him," said Thompson. "How on earth do you know they are the right person if you don't speak to him? Ideally you want to speak to as many candidates as you can. Some of them will be in jobs and clubs are entitled to turn them down."
Thompson confirmed that, unlike the previous manager, there was nothing in the Finn's contract, which runs to 2018, guaranteeing him a percentage of any incoming transfer fees. "There is no sell-on percentage for the head coach, no," said Thomspon. "It wasn’t even a discussion. And if it had been it wouldn’t have happened."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel