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GEORGE CRAN: Bonus feud the last thing Dundee and James McPake need right now while clubs must take step back on Jeando Fuchs racism investigation

John Nelms, the Dundee players and Tam Courts (inset).

Life at Dens Park can never, ever be described as dull.

Even during an international break where the manager and players are quite rightly getting their heads down to work through things, something happens.

Well, the players should have been keeping their heads down anyway.

Yesterday it emerged there was an impasse between the playing squad and managing director John Nelms over the size of win bonuses offered by the club.

For one thing, this should have been sorted before the season started. No question about that.

It screams of poor management from the top not to have these things put to bed before a ball is kicked.

The timing of it coming out, though, is not good.

Dundee managing director John Nelms.

When it’s about win bonuses in a season where you haven’t won any league games, sympathy from fans is going to be sorely lacking.

Bottom of the table without a win, very poor in their most recent match and with a potentially-lengthy ban hanging over Leigh Griffiths’ head, more negativity is the last thing the club needs.

Then there’s Alex Jakubiak getting injured in a fight outside a night club, to boot.

But it’s Dundee, there’s always something.

James McPake

I’d imagine manager James McPake will be tearing his hair out, too.

It’s the last thing he needs when searching for the winning formula over the next couple of weeks.

Tactically, the Dark Blues were out-done by St Johnstone at the weekend.

I don’t think we’ll see the back three appear again for a while, though it did work well against Rangers.

Dundee boss James McPake was confined to the stands.

The team’s performance in the first half was very poor and nothing like any of the previous displays.

That’s all that should be in the manager’s mind at a time like this, focusing solely on what he can do to get a positive reaction from his players.

With all this, though, he’s caught in the middle of players and boss.

The team’s confidence will have taken a hit after the match at McDiarmid, too.

His job over the next week or so is to rally those troops and get some belief back into them.

Player focus

All this bonus talk, however, is just another negative to concern the players on top of the things that have gone against them on the pitch.

And that’s exactly why all these off-pitch matters should be dealt with and agreed before a ball is kicked.

A big part of how the club is run is to ensure the players are going into games clear of any thoughts other than how to win the next match.

Now the players are wasting energy worrying about bonuses.

Very quickly, it doesn’t feel like a happy club.

It is one thing after another at the moment.

The best way out of all this is to get a deal done and then earn those bonuses by beating Aberdeen next time out.


Clubs must step back and let racism investigation find out the truth

Tam Courts backed midfielder Jeando Fuchs after the Ross County win.

We don’t want racism in our game.

It’s quite simple.

And it’s entirely right that there should be a full and frank investigation into whatever was said to Dundee United midfielder Jeando Fuchs during the match against Ross County.

We need to know what was said before anything else happens.

It may have been a misunderstanding as County have suggested, or not.

But I didn’t like the statement coming from the Staggies on Sunday afternoon.

It’s only right that they should stand up for their fans but saying players can put up with foul language and swearing as long as it’s not racist is a pretty weak argument to me.

Tam Courts was right to back up his player, too, but I think he jumped the gun a little with the t-shirt gesture.

Ross County boss Malky Mackay criticised Tam Courts.

Both sides just needed to take a step back and let the investigation run its course.

Now it’s with the governing bodies, hopefully we will find out one way or the other.

The elephant in the room for Ross County, of course, is the history and baggage that comes with their manager Malky Mackay.

Particularly when it comes to racism.

Seeing him on camera criticising anything to do with racism was pretty unedifying.

I truly hope it was all a misunderstanding but hopefully there’s a lesson in there about how to deal with these things properly.