Rangers v Dundee: Eric Drysdale issues Dens Park investment admission after second postponement
Eric Drysdale has admitted there is “work to be done” on the Dens Park pitch after Rangers v Dundee was postponed for a second time and has “absolutely” committed to doing it.
The Dundee secretary told BBC Sport Scotland (10 April) that they had been “unfortunate” with the timing of games and pointed to rain 35% above the 10-year average and 70% more in the past three months as being something “we obviously couldn’t anticipate”.
He claimed there was “genuinely” nothing more that could be done to get the Light Blues game to go ahead on either of the dates it has now been rained off, while revealing that investment is on the way to bring the surface up to an “acceptable standard”.
Drysdale said: “We do recognise, however, that there is a need for investment in the pitch. Clearly we can’t dig up the pitch in the middle of the season, so we have to do it in the close season and we are absolutely going to be doing that. We’re in the middle of finalising investment that is required in the pitch and the work that is required to bring this up to an acceptable standard.”
Dundee investment too late to avoid more Rangers upheaval
Clearly the weather is out of everyone’s control, but when grounds all round Scotland are coping better with the rainfall, including one that is a matter of minutes away, the excuse of wetter than usual weather falls down.
Tannadice hasn’t had the same problems as Dens Park, and while the Dundee United stadium may have slightly different conditions it is subject to virtually the exact same weather.
Stuart Kettlewell called out the Dark Blues for investing in their squad over their facilities after his Motherwell side won 3-2 at the weekend in another game where player safety was on the agenda [Scottish Sun, 6 April].
From a Dundee perspective it might be understandable why they might want to spend on players to give themselves a better chance to compete, but if that means nobody gets to compete because games can’t be played it becomes a big issue.
It is impossible to say exactly what effect this could have on Philippe Clement and the Gers squad, but the psychological back-and-forth of getting mentally ready to play and the match being postponed certainly doesn’t seem helpful.
And when this game is crucial to an extremely tight Rangers title race with Celtic it is unsurprising that is causing a great deal of frustration for the club and their fans.
It seems Kettlewell’s words have been headed, and Clement’s thoughts are likely to be similar, but investment in work during the summer comes too late to solve the current issue.
In other Rangers news, Chris Sutton claims there has been talk of Ibrox getting the game after the extensive disruption.
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