For a man with such an obvious conflict of interest this week Peter Houston really should keep a much lower profile.
The former Hearts, Leicester and Dundee United Number 2 has taken on the same role with Scotland but seems to be in the dark about his responsibilities as Craig Levein’s assistant.
In the current day and age one of the main tasks of international management is to retain a healthy working relationship with club managers.
The international calendar is something that most clubs could do without with friendly fixtures a complete irrelevance as Levein as good as admitted after Scotland were beaten 3-0 in Sweden earlier this season.
Managing that relationship with club managers requires a level of diplomacy to ensure continued support if not goodwill when it comes to clubs releasing their players.
Celtic were rightly unhappy that Shaun Maloney played a full 90 minutes in the pointless friendly with the Faroe Isles in November. Celtic played Dundee United the Saturday after the Faroe’s match.
A week later the Celtic captain, who was left out of the original Scotland squad, picked up an injury against Inverness Caley and hasn’t been seen since.
The conflict for Houston in tonight’s match with Northern Ireland is even more obvious.
Despite being used as substitutes in the win over the Faroes, Gary Kenneth and David Goodwillie were left out of the squad to face Northern Ireland although Craig Conway was called up on Monday.
While Kenneth and Goodwillie get a full week to prepare for Sunday’s visit from Celtic three of their opponents; Scott Brown, Kris Commons and Mark Wilson are with the Scotland squad in Dublin.
If any players are to be used sparingly then I suspect that Neil Lennon will be asking Levein to go easy with Brown and Commons who have been named in the starting XI. Both players are very committed to the international scene but know that club football is their priority.
Handling the delicate matter of international management is difficult enough but Houston’s inexperience was shown up by his quotes about Steven Naismith’s red card in the Rangers-Celtic game on Sunday.
Straight after the game Ally McCoist admitted Naismith’s guilt over the ordering off saying: “It looked like Naisy went down easily.
“I haven’t spoken to him but I don’t think there was any contact. I think the ref looked on at as an illegal attempt to win a penalty. If that was the case he was well within his rights to send Naisy off.”
According to Houston the Rangers assistant got that wrong, a comment not lost on Lennon.
Excusing Naismith’s dive Houston claimed: “I think he was going so quickly that he was on the way in a forward momentum that took him down. I don’t think that he deliberately dived.
“He’s not been accused of that in the past so I don’t think, going forward, it’s even worth mentioning that he’s a cheat or that he tried to con the ref.
“His momentum took him down due to the pace he was going at. He could have slipped – it was a slippery pitch yesterday.
“For me he’s one of our most honest and hard-working players. I think it would be really unfair if he was tarred as a cheat.”
Lennon took those quotes with a pinch of salt responding with: “I’m not happy with the Dundee United manager’s comments about Naismith after he accused Ki of going down like a sack of tatties at Tannadice, a bit bizarre.
“It must have been a slippy pitch. Obviously he’s an expert groundsman as well now.”
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