Mackay Welcomes Kane Back To East End Park

With news coming through the other day that Dunfermline Athletic had secured the permanent signing of former loanee,  Chris Kane, from St Johnstone ahead of the coming 2024/25 Scottish Championship campaign, well simply put, plenty of Pars fans will be well happy that we have managed to get this deal over the line.

The 29 year old former Saints Academy graduate has built up reasonable game time and experience across his career so far, but in terms of league action for his former club, he was mostly used as an option from the substitutes bench (99 starts, 100 showings as a sub), and in those games he contributed 26 goals, whilst also gaining loan experience out with Dumbarton (twice) and Queen of the South earlier in his career.

Having moved to us for the second half of the 2023/24 campaign as we battled against relegation from the Championship under gaffer James McPake, the striker made ten starting appearances for us, returning five goals, and that is clearly a goals to games ratio that we are hoping he can again match, or at least get close to, as we look for our own improvement moving forward and  according to wincomparator.com, these would be the odds of him doing just that.

Given the impact that he did have for us last campaign, it was fully expected that we would try and bring him in again, and upon signing his new two year deal with us, Kane revealed that those talks were front and centre before the season ended, and from his point of view, that helped and made the decision easier as he already felt wanted and valued by the staff.

With his arrival on February 13, our growing injury situation meant that he had a very quick first team entry, and obviously having enjoyed himself in those matches, that also made a massive difference when it came to his decision to return, as he wants to keep that form going and continue to be an important part of the manager`s plans moving forward.

He did however, have other options to consider, but he joked as soon as our offer was on the table it was a complete no brainer from his point of view, unless one of the newly emerging Saudi Arabian Pro League teams were going to `offer me crazy money`. So ultimately there were few discussions, as people had largely been on the same page for quite a while.

With the move meaning that he is reunited with former team mate  Dave Mackay on a more formal basis again, that was obviously another driven in both deals as they already share a relationship and understanding, so naturally our assistant manager was the one to speak about his capture, and he was clearly delighted at seeing us get the deal over the line for a number of reasons, not least he knows what an asset he can be to the squad, and he knows that the fans have already seen the first sign of that following on from his loan spell performances.

With a good goal threat shown during his loan spell, Mackay insists his biggest asset is that he is an almighty nuisance for defenders, and that in turn leaves gaps for other to exploit, so it sounds like we may already have the idea to play him in slightly different roles depending on who our opposition is in the moment.

He was undoubtedly one of our top targets for this summer though, so with this deal done and dusted, fans will be hoping that the next one comes quickly over the line as well as a full pre season for all of our new captures would be an added bonus of its own.

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