By Matthew Blakeman
August 8 2002

Matty Blakemans weekly view on the latest match. With his first article after a game this season labled Encouraging Start! And Encouraging Start it was to Mattys Excellent weekly Article.

Encouraging Start

Prior to the Hearts game, I predicted a draw and singled out Caballero as the player to shine this season. I won’t brag. Although even I couldn’t have predicted a performance as good as what we saw on Saturday. In truth, we should have won but this Dark Blue left Dens far to proud and excited to worry about the lack of sharpness in front of goal.

7705 turned up at Dens on Saturday with around five and a half thousand of those supporting Dundee. I thought there was a lot more until I realised the empty few rows at the front of the Bobby Cox stand. One thing I’m sure of that it felt like a lot more as it has been ages since the atmosphere inside Dens was so moving. I could only take pity on those who chose not to turn up. The reason for the great atmosphere was probably because we were re-introduced to something that we hadn’t seen in a good while – a Dundee team with a fighting spirit. It’s what had been missing from the side throughout virtually the entirety of the Bonetti era and is what many had hoped Duffy could bring to the club when he joined. But the down side to this, or so we all thought, is that if the fighting spirit came in, the flair, panache and all round entertainment would disappear. How wrong could we be? It’s hard to imagine a side with an on form Nemsadze and a seemingly re-juvenated Fabian Caballero on the park with out entertainment. And then there’s wee Nacho. It would be unfair to the likes of Raith Rovers and Spanish clubs before them to say that a star was born last weekend but it seems that those who gave the Spaniard rave reviews weren’t lying as Novo hit the big stage for the first time. He said himself that he was disappointed with his performance and that was easy to see whenever frustration set in at the failure to skin an opponent for the umpteenth. But as his final ball let him down on a number of occasions, it seemed that the Dens faithful didn’t care. They had seen enough dazzling runs and non-stop effort to notice that at £100,000, Nacho Novo was a gem and could be the bargain buy of the season in the S.P.L.

Lets not forget the unsung heroes. I, personally, would give the man of the match award to young Dave Mackay who played a blinder at right back. Jonay Hernandez continued to progress on the other side, providing width for the 3 man midfield. And of course Lee Mair made us all wonder why he spent most of last season at Falkirk as he surprised everyone, including me, with a wonderful display in midfield. And Juan, heed up mate. The goals will come.

This Saturday takes us to Ibrox, somewhat of a happy hunting ground in recent times and following the events at Dens and Rugby Park last week, we’ve got a fair chance. If the spirit is there, we can take on anyone. The foundation is there for a quality side from front to back. Like last week, I’ll say a draw. Possibly goalless.