The Premiership. The top table of Scottish football.
It’s where clubs want to be.
It’s where Dundee are once more.
Back in the top 12 teams in Scotland.
How high up they finish in those 12 teams is a mystery we’ll discover the answer to over the next nine months.
It’s been five years since the Dark Blues finished any higher than 12th.
That’s far too long.
The yo-yo seasons have become a bit tiresome.
Relieving that tired eventuality is the main task for Tony Docherty and his young team.
Mystery
I used the word mystery for a reason.
Because we really just don’t know how Dundee will fare in the upcoming campaign.
Things have looked good in pre-season and in most of the League Cup games.
Goals have been a bit of an issue, just like they were last season.
The main concerns for me are over experience in the Premiership, there’s not a huge amount in the players who have been signed.
Joe Shaughnessy obviously has plenty and Scott Tiffoney has a bit but elsewhere there’s none.
There are a lot of loan players.
That was a big problem for Dundee back in 2018/19.
Under Jim McIntyre they basically brought the wrong players in, big questions over their commitment to Dundee, and it showed by the end after a terrible season.
This time it does feel like more work – and better work – has gone into the mentalities of the players brought in on loan.
That could be key.
X-Factor
Because, for all there are worries over experience and using loan players so much, that could in fact become Dundee’s X-factor.
Docherty has built a young team, a hungry team with players keen to make their name in the game.
You look at Owen Beck.
He’s not in a position where he can just slack off and Liverpool won’t notice.
He’s got a chance to make it as a first-team player at Anfield.
To do that, he’s got to demonstrate his ability while on loan at Dundee.
Guys like Malachi Boateng, Tiffoney, Antonio Portales, Diego Pineda, Jon McCracken and players already at the club like Luke McCowan and Josh Mulligan are all desperate to show they can cut it at Premiership level.
We’ve all seen there is quality in the Dundee squad.
Ally that with hunger to do well and you’ve got a pretty potent mix.
Premiership
There is, though, a lot of new faces to bed into the team and that will be difficult.
We also haven’t seen Dundee up against Premiership level opposition.
There are so many unknowns that predicting anything is nigh on impossible.
If things go wrong again, it could be back to the yo-yo status.
If things go absolutely to plan there’s no reason why sneaking into the top six isn’t plausible.
But Dundee are a mystery right now, making this upcoming season even more exciting.
