Steven Pressley has admitted Dundee are down to the defensive bare bones because it would have been wrong to block Aaron Donnelly’s move to Dunfermline. The Dark Blues head coach is still in the market for more defenders, but currently only has two fit centre halves for Monday’s opener with Celtic.
Pressley had already told Northern Irish cap Donnelly that he was surplus to requirements and didn’t want to deprive him of the opportunity to get back playing at East End Park under Neil Lennon.
Difficult timing
Pressley said: “Yes, not ideal timing if I'm honest because we haven't managed to get a defender in prior to making the decision. We're in a really difficult situation in terms of that they're the one club that's been really pursuing Aaron.”
“We'd hoped we'd get a defender in by now. We'd told Dunfermline that we needed to utilise them during the Premier Sports Cup and that we'd allow them to go immediately after. Now if we hadn't honoured that Dunfermline would have went elsewhere meaning that the deal might not have gone through meaning then we're in a situation where nobody had committed to taking Aaron.”
Player-first decision
“With us not really playing the player for a long period of time it would have been wrong for us not to allow him to go and further his career. There's always that selfish part where we're thinking we need him for a little bit longer. We probably could have done that but the deal might have gone away and we might have had a situation where Aaron remained with us for the season. It wasn't an ideal decision, it wasn't a perfect decision but it was a decision we felt for the player and for the club we had to make.”
Recruitment work continues
Pressley and his recruitment team are working flat out to try and strengthen before Monday. Pressley confirmed: “We don't know, we're trying (ahead of Monday) but I would say at this moment in time it might be unlikely, but we are pursuing some options.”
The Dens Park outfit are looking to bring in a couple of defenders and attacking options before the end of the window. He added: “We need two (defenders). We need another four players when we look at the group. We need another two defenders and we need another two attacking players within the group. That's within our target.”
“I think it's not where we want to be but I also think that we were in a similar situation last year. We got quite a number of players later in the window. I think what it allows you to do is sometimes players that we pursued for some time eventually think okay, this could be the right option.”
“With most of the players we go for Dundee are not a priority club they're not thinking that's where I want to be they might have one or two options and we have to be a little bit more patient around them, so it can be difficult and we have to sometimes be patient in our pursuit but we are being aggressive in that area.”
“It's not ideal because I also think in our recruitment we've recruited some good players but I also think some of those players are going to take time they're not absolutely ready at this moment so we've got a lot of work to do on the grass and we've got a lot of work to do still around recruitment. I know how hard the lads are working in recruitment if I'm honest, the likes of David doesn't sleep during the transfer window so we know that eventually we'll get there.”
