DUNDEE'S selection crisis worsened last night as manager Alex Rae was forced to pull the plug on making emergency loan signings after being told the club has no more money.
The Dens Park manager will be without seven first-team players for the trip to Partick Thistle tomorrow following a devastating run of luck which saw Colin Cameron, Gary MacKenzie, Eric Paton, Darren Williams and Colin McMenamin succumb to a selectio
n of medium to long-term injuries.
When they are added to fellow crocks Jim Lauchlan and Darren Young, Rae is without nearly half of his squad for the foreseeable future.
As a result he had looked into signing players on loan under the emergency rule and had even identified targets, but the Dens board ordered him to stop because they cannot finance any further deals.
To compound matters for Rae, the SFA has ruled that youngster Craig Forsyth, who joined Arbroath on loan last Friday, must remain at Gayfield for the duration of the 28-day agreement so cannot be recalled.
Rae revealed: "I had already spoken to experienced players about coming here but in the end it wasn't possible. If there is no money that's the way it is."
With squad numbers so depleted, Rae has resumed training himself this week, even though he celebrated his 39th birthday on Tuesday, and may be on the bench against the Jags.
"If you do the numbers we have 40 per cent of the squad unavailable at the moment. But we'll get a team together and go down to Partick to be positive," Rae added.
The full article contains 270 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
