According to today's Courier we have expressed an interest to take him on loan for a month or so to help recover his match fitness. If that comes off it would help boost crowds.

DUNDEE UNITED boss Craig Levein is ready to put defender Lee Wilkie out on loan for his own good.

Wilkie has been battling back to fitness after long-term knee ligament problems and made his debut for the Tangerines in Saturday’s defeat at Falkirk.

However, Levein believes the former Dundee man, who is nursing a slight hamstring strain, needs more time to recover both physically and psychologically from his injury woe and would benefit from a spell at a lower-league club.

“In my opinion, Lee is not ready to play first-team matches at this level,” said the Tannadice manager. “So I am considering putting him out on loan for about a month.

“He needs to find some middle ground between reserve football and the first team in the SPL.

“It could do him a power of good to get competitive matches but not quite at the same pace as the Premierleague.

“I like Lee as a player and tried to sign him for Leicester, he is a Scotland internationalist and has the experience we need for our side.

“Unfortunately, though, he has played just a handful of games in something like two and a half years.

“So if he could get four or five matches at lower league level that would help him.

“It would also be a big bonus for us if we can get him back right and ready for our first team.

“We have got to get him back playing regularly and that would tell me everything about his knee.”

East Fife are believed to be keen to take the former Scotland man to New Bayview.

He'd never get in the team.

He is, or was, a Scotland International not so long ago.

Could be a decent signing but Levein would want him playing every game and if he's only 20% fit he could end up being a liability if we are dropping someone to make space for him. Also, Levein robably still hates East Fife and i'm sure he'd rather offer Wilkie to Raith as a softner for leaving them in the shit.

When Levein was at Cowdenbeath he seem us as a bunch of hammer-throwers maybe he see's Wilkie in the same light and his hoping our methods will rub off on him

You're right he did see East Fife as hammer throwers but he was wrong then and hes wrong now. Levein is a bad loser but he'd better get used to it, for the rest of the season at least.

Maybe he'll pick up a few points next season, in the 1st division

Levein hated Derrick Brown rather than East Fife as he told me at Inspector Gadgets wedding 2 years ago. The reason being Hearts agreed to play East Fife for their centenary game but when Levein enquired about Hearts hiring Bayview for a reserve game he was quoted a fee far in excess of what Dunfermline had been paying. What happened? Levein told him where to stick it and East Fife lost out on revenue so he told me.

Maybe Wilkie would be available to us now.

Levein might have had a stronger case for complaint if he had bothered to turn up for the centenary game.

Levein's hate for East Fife goes back way before he was manager at Tynecastle.
I witnessed first hand his antics at Bayview during a Sunday youth team match when he argued with Rab Shannon about how many people were allowed in the dug-out area, before asking him to go outside to settle the matter! The guy's just a waste of space.

Levein could be a decent bloke, but he's a fanny. Comes across as a likeable individual - until he starts to feel any pressure. Broke a team-mate's jaw during a match; broke his hand punching a blackboard in the dressing room; banned the local newspaper because they used a Hibs story bigger than a Hearts one; abused Tony Mowbray (he must have been the only manager in Scotland to have a bad word about Mowbray).

The Shannon story fits the profile.

Surely Shannon for all his managerial shortcomings could've at least been well able to take care of Levein in a fist fight ?

I know who my money would've been on.

Be interesting if he ever started on Baikie....

Why upset the lads who have obviously been playing very well at the back? I could see the point if we were playing absolute sh*t and were leaking goals left right and centre but apart from the QP game it seems to me it ain't been that bad....

I agree with pingpong. Nobody deserves to be dropped from the defence,especially for a player who is not match fit.