James McPake describes Dundee as a “Championship side” but won’t use kit clash as excuse after 3-1 defeat to St Johnstone

The suspended Dundee manager James McPake was in the stand to watch his side lose 3-1 to St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park (Photo by Roddy Scott / SNS Group)

The suspended Dens Park manager had barely taken his seat in the stand when the home side scored their third goal 34 seconds into the second half through Stevie May.

St Johnstone had already scored twice in the opening half through a double from Chris Kane to help Liam Craig celebrate making a club record 442nd appearance in style.

Dundee defender Ryan Sweeney scored his side’s first goal since August with 17 minutes left but there was little further evidence that a comeback was likely.

McPake – sent off at the end of last weekend’s 1-0 defeat to Rangers - was left severely unimpressed. “I can’t fault the coaching staff because they did their job," he said. "I’m not throwing them under the bus because I made a stupid mistake last week, but the players need to look themselves in the mirror.

“Today we looked like a Championship team if I am being honest. The good thing – some might say it is not good – but for me the good thing is we have two weeks to work on things, and there’s a lot to work on. We have time to get a wee bit of freshness back.

“This club means a hell of lot to me. Most players down there will be hurting. The fans have every right to not be happy. If I was a fan in there I would be making my frustration clear because that is not good enough.

“If that if is what they are paying for to come and watch then I would not be paying to come and watch, especially that first half.

“The annoyance comes from the nature of the goals. We have not been conceding those goals. Again, I reiterate, I am not throwing them under a bus. I have come out and backed them this week when they lost a game and I backed them after Motherwell, a game I thought we should have won. But today I want to be as honest as I can.

"The goals we lost today were goals that if you lost at any level of football managers would be going through the roof at his players.”

Both teams took to the field wearing their blue home shirts with white shorts and blue socks. It’s unusual for a referee – in this case Greg Aitken – to allow such clashes to happen. But McPake dismissed this odd situation and said it was irrelevant in terms of the final outcome.

“As for the colours, I never even noticed,” he said. “I could see. I hope none of my defenders or goalkeeper decides to come in and tries to say ‘it was because of a colour clash’ because that would be complete nonsense. It would be cause for a ‘see you later’….”

St Johnstone manager Callum Davidson described St Johnstone’s display as the best his side had played all season. He also paid tribute to Craig.

“It's unbelievable for Liam and all credit to him and his family for what he has done for St Johnstone. The lads gave him a big ovation in the dressing-room and rightly so.”

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