Why James McPake’s comments need to be a wake up to the board

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Dunfermline Athletic return to pre-season training today but what lies ahead for the club after James McPake’s comments on recruitment.

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By Michael Wood

The first day back for first-team players at East End Park is nothing more than an induction day, a refresher course, and an outline of what can be expected over the next few weeks before the competitive season kicks off in Edinburgh versus fourth-tier Spartans on the 13th of July in the League Cup, following that up against another League Two opponent in Forfar Athletic four days later.

This is merely a day of admin: the tenured kit manager, Mo Hutton, will be jotting down measurements from each individual, seeing who has enjoyed their pies rather than their plyometrics over the seven-week break; sports scientist Euan Donaldson will oversee where everyone is in terms of their baseline fitness level; and manager James McPake will be stating his aims for this group, which will be shy a fair few faces from the end of last season, a dozen fewer to be exact.

The Pars has 17 footballers contracted and three apprentices who have made competitive appearances for the club. Those youngsters Ewan McLeod, Jake Sutherland and Liam Hoggan will go on loan, and Sam Young will join them, bringing the squad down to 16.

When Athletic properly get into the grind of pre-season training, after the open day tomorrow, the goalkeeping coach Andy Collier will have to involve himself in team training, with Thomas Margetts still finishing up the school year as a 15-year-old and Dunfermline without another senior professional wearing the gloves outwith number one Deniz Mehmet. And that perhaps is the beginning of McPake’s ire in the press.

McPake said on the penultimate day of the off-season:

“We are not going to bring six or seven players in, just with the way it is, the dynamics of the budget and the wages other clubs are offering.”

At a minimum, Dunfermline is four shy, five at most, with gaps needing plugging: a goalkeeper, a left back, a left-sided centre back, a left-footed attacking presence in the midfield, and at a push – a left-footed right winger.

That makes the moves of Logan Chalmers (Partick Thistle), Paul Hanlon (Raith Rovers) and Scott McMann (Ayr United) around the division hard to take, as every one of them appeared ideal for the club.

“There have been a couple of players we were interested in, but we just cannot match certain teams in this league,” McPake said. “At the minute, we cannot compete when it comes to the wages your hearing players are getting or that the agents are telling you other clubs are offering.”

Dunfermline has to navigate at least 36 Championship games, four League Cup ties, one Challenge Cup outing and a match in the Scottish Cup, which equates to 3,780 minutes or 63 hours. And with three weeks until the first of those games gets underway, the club cannot field an eligible matchday squad.

“In terms of the squad we have just now, when they are all fit, I believe it’s decent enough. It’s pretty strong.” McPake added. “We certainly need a wee bit of experience and quality as well to help these younger ones out at certain points in the season. And for the depth of the squad, we need to add options. We know as a club at the minute, the depth of the squad is not enough.”

For the Pars to get more funds it needs to perform better in tournaments and earn prize money. But it does not look promising as the club has not made it out of the group stages of the League Cup since 2021 and had two quarter-finals in the 18 years since they made the final. In the Scottish Cup, it is a miserable two wins in seven years, and in the Challenge Cup, you can count a dozen victories since relegation from the SPL in 2012. Without exaggeration, millions have been left on the table when factoring in four seasons in League One.

This is the club’s second consecutive season in the Championship, which commences on the third of August, but to begin with is a spate of four friendlies starting with League Two East Fife next Friday in Methil, League One Cove Rangers in Aberdeen five days after, before home outings against a St Mirren side prepping for the Europa Conference League qualifiers and Dundee, who finished sixth.

There is also a Fife Cup quarter-final tie with St Andrews United wedged between Livingston and Cove in the third and fourth ties in the League Cup, making it nine games across 29 days for a side that can do with re-familiarising themselves with one another after the ludicrous number of injuries last season.

While the loan window runs through September after the transfer window closes in August, Dunfermline has to get the majority of their business conducted before the start of the league campaign or may end up scrambling in the winter window for sub-par players as was the case earlier this year.

McPake said they were “caught cold” in their recruitment last summer, and with such a competitive Championship this time around where every team will be aiming for the Premiership Play-Offs as an objective, somebody has to go down, and as 2015 Scottish Cup winners Inverness Caledonian Thistle has just experienced, you cannot afford it to be you.

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(Photo credit: Craig Brown – DAFC.co.uk)