Milan Misun could be forgiven for wondering what he has stumbled into at Dundee after today’s 2-1 defeat at Cowdenbeath.
Malky Mackay
The loan Celt had a fairly tranquil introduction to life in the First Division with last week’s goal-less draw at home to Raith Rovers.
Since then it’s been drama all the way with the complex finances of Calum Melville putting the club’s existence in doubt and halting an unfair dismissal tribunal for Jocky Scott.
Players are expected to concentrate their efforts on the park but when that park is Central Park, Cowdenbeath, home of Stock Car racing in Scotland it can’t be easy.
Losing 2-1 would be bad enough for Misun but after being substituted at half-time with Dundee 2-0 down the club website certainly doesn’t pull any punches over their ‘favourites’ display.
It states bluntly: “Dundee’s season has been pretty bad so far, but instead of taking the traditional route from bad to worse the Dees just headed straight for downright grim this afternoon in Fife.
“The stock car racing didn’t start till 6:30, but the first crash of the day was provided by the Dark Blues.”
Going out on loan to a lower division side is often termed an eye opener- the young Czech defender will be prepared for anything when his loan spell ends- assuming Dundee remain in business.
Elsewhere in Division 1 Sean Fitzharris played for the final 40 minutes of Morton’s goal-less draw at home to Ross County while Jason Marr was in the Falkirk team that lost 2-1 away to Raith Rovers.
In the SPL Paul McGowan scored for St Mirren but it wasn’t enough to prevent them from losing 2-1 at home to Inverness Caley Thistle on the rebound from their 6-0 defeat by Celtic.
Down south it was a mixed day for former Celts managing clubs in The Championship with Malky Mackay taking the honours with Watford winning their first home game of the season against Gordon Strachan’s Middlesbrough.
Both teams went into the match on two game winning runs but the homeside scored after 20 seconds and found themselves three goals in front after 20 minutes.
Strachan brought on Kris Boyd for the second half but Middlesbrough’s first away goal of the season came from an og scored by Adrian Mariappa with ten minutes left to play.
The result takes relegation favourites Watford up into third place behind QPR and Cardiff to the delight of Mackay after last week’s 6-1 win away to Millwall.
“I was pleased today,” the Watford boss admitted. “Middlesbrough came down here and they are an experienced team, a former Premiership in fact with a good manager. I think that helped focus the boys and the team knew it would be tough game.
“For the first half an hour they really put a performance in that was as good as I’ve seen. It’s great that we can score different types of goals, it means you’re not predictable.
“It means the opposition doesn’t become settled in what you do and how you score. Centre forwards thrive on goals and the work-rate that Danny Graham, Marvin Sordell and Troy Deeney got through was immense. They never gave the centre backs any peace.”
Strachan struggled to make sense of his side’s performance claiming: “Funnily enough in between the goals, we had some smashing efforts ourselves. The game wasn’t a big, big problem as such, but they made our back four defend and, as you can see, they got three goals.”
Paul Lambert’s Norwich lost 2-0 at home to Hull while Ipswich drew 1-1 away to Scunthorpe with Darren O’Dea back in defence for Roy Keane’s side.
In League One Graham Carey was the victim of an injury time winner as Swindon, including Scott Cuthbert, Paul Caddis and Jon-Paul McGovern, beat Huddersfield 1-0.
Josh Thompson played his fifth game of the season for Rochdale in the 1-1 draw at home to Plymouth with the newly promoted Lancashire club sitting in sixth place.
Down in the basement it was another tough day for Chris Sutton who watched Lincoln lose 1-0 at home to Stevenage. Ben Hutchison played the full 90 minutes with five Lincoln players getting yellow carded.
On the continent Morten Rasmussen was missing as Mainz05 maintained their 100% Bundesliga record with a 2-1 win away to Bayern Munich.
In Russia Aiden McGeady scored his first goal for Spartak Moscow in their 2-2 draw at home to Amkar Perm which leaves Spartak trailing leaders Zenit St Petersburg by 17 points.
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