Interview: Peter Houston, manager of Dundee United, on management, getting sacked and Scotland

But there is no avoiding the speculation and entering the manager’s office, the headlines scream up at Peter Houston from the table in front of him. According to that morning’s newspapers he is about to be sacked. The reality hadn’t escaped him after all. He just chose to ignore it.

“It’s a bit like water off a duck’s back. It’s not nice and I don’t like to see the stuff that’s in the papers just now but I’m not getting uptight.” Instead he makes wee jokes – gallows humour. “At the moment we all need to stick together instead of worrying about crap like this. I’m not worried. It’s five years ago this week I walked in the door and if it all comes to an end tomorrow, with the chairman sacking me, then I will walk out of the front door with my head held high, having won the cup, cut costs while still finishing third and fourth in the league. I will walk away knowing that I have done a good job and with the money they are due me.”

A meeting between the manager and the board is scheduled for this afternoon, the outcome suspected but not confirmed. For now Houston is calm, though it’s probably the kind of calm that comes before the storm, because it’s clear that Houston is seething internally. Not necessarily at the possible culmination of his managerial reign, but at the way the matter has been handled.

Of course, he doesn’t think he deserves to be ousted and he makes a convincing case, but he believes he certainly shouldn’t be discarded with such disrespect. The fact is that he is one of the most successful managers in the club’s history and has managed to achieve that success while off-loading the experienced and the gifted.

Houston has helped the club reduce its debts from £6.5 million to £4.5m, slashed the wage bill and stuffed his squad with youngsters. The current squad is the smallest and youngest in his five years at the club. He lost the heart of the side, with Prince Bauben and Morgano Gomis leaving in the summer, as well as their main attacking threats when David Goodwillie followed Craig Conway south.

Take all that on board, along with the leg break for Scott Severin, and injury sidelining Sean Dillon for eight matches and preventing Danny Swanson from featuring consistently, and there are extenuating circumstances as to why the team had won only two of their first 12 SPL matches. Yet, with five draws, they were still sitting just four points off top six.

Or viewed another way, two points from the relegation spot, with matches against Rangers, Hearts, Motherwell and Celtic looming. Houston says it is all about whether “you’re a glass half full or a glass half empty person.”

“I admit it has been a difficult start but it is still early days,” he said. I know this squad of players won’t finish this season down there. The upcoming games won’t be easy but I don’t think any manager outwith the Old Firm should be judged on their results against Celtic and Rangers. There are reasons why we haven’t started well and we are working to overcome them but we didn’t start well last year and finished fourth.

“I could understand people making a decision this early in the season if we’d come into it on the back of a couple of mediocre seasons, finishing sixth and seventh, but we’ve not.

“As it is, with this budget, if we finish in the top six or maybe push a little bit higher I will consider that as big an achievement as winning the cup and finishing third. That’s how difficult it is now.”

But despite the plea in mitigation, he is also a pragmatist.

“I’m not stupid, I know the expectation level is that we are a top-six club and if I can’t deliver that then I expect the sack. If it comes it comes, there’s nothing I can do about it, but if it comes just now then I will be really disappointed because I don’t think I deserve it yet. One day possibly I will deserve that. I accept that. But I don’t think I deserve it now.

“Whether this is true or not,” he says stabbing at the newspaper story, “I base relationships I have with people on trust. I’m 53 years old now so I’m not daft and I do have some experience and I just think that trust is so important. If the directors feel that United have a problem and we are not winning enough games, they should talk about it, get round the table and discuss how we sort it. That’s why I’m disappointed that stuff like this has come out. When it comes to blasting players I do that behind closed doors. I do the same when it comes to chatting to the board, that’s why I’m not happy about the sh*** in the papers now.”

Under Craig Levein when a similar scenario unfolded at Leicester City, this is the first time he has experienced such alleged ducking and diving behind his own back.

“I think it was harder for me seeing it happen to him or hearing the big yin being criticised. I would want to talk back to people or constantly ask him if he had seen one thing or another on websites or in the papers and he would just tell me to shut up and not bite back, to forget it. Now that it’s me they are coming after, strangely, I find it easier to take. Until now I have been quite fortunate but when we won the cup I did warn my family that this day would come. I told them to prepare themselves, that it was all downhill from there.”

Having been virtually corralled into the job when his former gaffer took on the Scotland job, Houston has grown to love it. “I know,” he laughs. “I didn’t even really want the job at the start. But if it turns out there is truth in these stories it wouldn’t scunner me. It would make me all the more determined to get back into management. It’s been a great experience the past two years.”

He is annoyed that his Scotland role has been dragged into the equation. It was at the root of the misunderstanding between himself and young Scott Allan, which has now been resolved, he says. Houston, who was annoyed the kid would not extend his contract, admits he might have handled things differently. He originally ostracised the youngster but, he insists, he never threatened his Scotland place.

“I said that I felt it would be better for his development if he stayed for another couple of years because if he goes to an English club, the chances are he is going to go down there and be stuck in reserve football for a couple of years. I had a verbal with Scotty and said that if he wasn’t playing then he wouldn’t be in the Scotland U21s and I think he misconstrued what I was saying. I meant if he, like any other player, wasn’t playing regularly then it would be harder to get into the squad. He thought I meant I would somehow stop him being selected. I would never, ever do that. I could never, ever do that because neither Billy Stark nor Craig Levein would let me. Rightly so.

“Which is why it is laughable that anyone thinks I tell Craig to pick my players for Scotland.”

That accusation was dusted down again when Danny Swanson was selected for a recent squad. “God’s honest truth, I found out from someone at the SFA when I called about tickets and they asked me about Swanny’s suit size. That was the morning it was being announced and Craig hadn’t even spoken to me about it. I think some people want to get at Craig and they are trying to do it through me. It’s rubbish.”

Last week Houston said he would not travel with the squad to Cyprus, instead preferring to stay and take training at United. Again people questioned his motives but it wasn’t a cynical attempt to head off any suggestions of the sack, he states.

“It’s in my contract that I can go away with Scotland and if it was a qualifier and Craig needed me to work on set pieces then I would probably go to Cyprus but it’s not and I felt that maybe the players wanted me round about them here. Their confidence isn’t great and everything that has been in the papers doesn’t help so I feel it might be better to stay, not so much because I think we need to do a lot of work, it’s just that sometimes they need you round about them. I’m staying for the players, not because the press or fans had picked up on it.”

Well that was the intention. Depending on how this afternoon’s meeting goes that may not be an option. He may be Cyprus bound after all.