Dundee FC’s threat to suspend the contracts of their players and thus stop their wages indicates clearly how desperate finances are at Dens Park.
The club has, until now, been paying the players despite no football being played, but it gave them until midnight on Friday July 10 to accept wage reductions after concluding they couldn’t continue to pay at current levels.
Coming alongside the threat of cuts to the youth academy, the move signals that a serious cash crisis is unfolding at the Dark Blues.
If the players are expected to take cuts, many fans will be asking if everyone at the club is in it together.
Are wage cuts to be felt across the board, with managing director John Nelms leading by example?
Even if players accept wages being reduced in these dire circumstances, the effect of only the playing staff taking a hit would be a bitter morale blow.
These are unprecedented times and tough decisions are being made which have serious ramifications in both the short and long-term.
However, if there’s a sense that everyone at Dens is prepared to share the pain, then the damage in this grim tale may be lessened.
“How would you deal with players who need motivation?” a famous English manager was once asked.
“I look around the dressing room and if there are any like that, I sack them,” was his reply.
It’s been suggested that new Dundee United boss Micky Mellon is old school, but from what we’re told, he’s a different kind of old school from that antediluvian mind set.
There’s a fine line between agreeing that professional athletes should be self starters and finding methods of management to lift them beyond what they might themselves feel capable of.
The great man-managers possess that gift.
The ability to cajole, communicate, inspire and elevate often ordinary players to heights undreamt of.
It’s a rare talent to be able to eke the crucial extra ounce of effort or sweat from tired bodies and limbs and, in football, where often the skills gap between two teams is marginal, it can be the difference between success and failure.
Mellon hasn’t worked in the Scottish game and some will tell you that’s a disadvantage.
I’m not certain how though, in a game which, wherever you go, is still primarily about the ability to control and pass a ball, beat a man, shoot and tackle.
Either a man can manage or he can’t.
Is there a difference in the Scottish player’s mentality from that which Mellon will be used to?
I don’t see why there should be.
Professional footballers speak the same language on the pitch whether it’s England, Scotland or any other part of the globe.
The new United manager has inherited a decent squad at the sixth biggest club in the country.
He arrives with a reputation of being able to get the best from players.
All players or managers can offer is their best.
If Micky Mellon can squeeze that from all at Tannadice his appointment will prove to be a sound one.
