Some of the players to arrive at Dens Park yesterday required no introduction, the announcement over the PA system that the likes of Jesus Navas, Fernando and Aleksandar Kolarov were to start for Manchester City made only out of a sense of obligation.
Their names were called out from the stands too as young Dundee supporters sought autographs during the pre-match warm-up.
There were two figures who stood out more for Paul Hartley, though, after a satisfying and eyebrow-raising 2-0 win for his side. The Dundee manager name-checked his two German trialists, Thomas Konrad and Luka Tankulic, and extolled their performances.
He will approach each of them directly today to discuss the prospect of retaining them on contracts ahead of the SPFL Premiership campaign. "Luka did very well up front. He held the ball in well and Thomas at centre-back was really strong," said Hartley, whose side won following a goal from Gary Harkins and an own goal from Dedryck Boyata during the first half.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article