McNamara's fiery debut

Jackie McNamara faces a baptism of fire as Dundee United manager- a Scottish Cup tie at home to Sevco.

The former Celtic captain will be named as Peter Houston’s successor at Tannadice this morning but will have no time to bed himself into the job with the Third Division leaders coming to Tayside on Saturday.

It’s a long time since any fixture took place against such a background of anger with Sevco spokesman Charles Green happy to talk up and give credibility to any theory that his fans come up with.

Dundee United have been labelled as one of the driving forces behind Sevco’s demise despite most of the evidence pointing towards the role of Dave Murray, Craig Whyte and Green’s bizarre belief that HMRC would accept a CVA for an undeclared pennies in the pound deal.

With Green’s endorsement the Third Division side haven’t accepted any tickets for Saturday’s match although Dundee United have been selling tickets directly to visiting supporters.

McNamara walks into the scene this morning with more personal matters on mind. Getting a home win out of a group of players that haven’t won at Tannadice in the SPL since August will buy him some time and draw a line under the dieing days of the Houston regime.

As soon as it was announced that he wouldn’t be getting his contract renewed the writing was on the wall for the former Scotland No. 2 with Saturday’s 1-1 draw at home to Ross County watched by less than 6,000 supporters.

Despite a home draw against lower league opposition few United fans would have been confident going into Saturday’s match with Houston in charge.

In under two years at Partick Thistle McNamara brought some fresh life to Firhill, investing his faith in young players with former Celt Stephen O’Donnell named in the Scotland u-21 squad to play Greece.

Thistle are sitting in second place in Division One knowing that if they win both of their games in hand over Morton that they’ll go to the top of the table.

With long term pal Simon Donnelly by his side McNamara has left that behind for a club that should regularly be competing for trophies and qualifying for European football.

Those lofty ideas will be put aside on Saturday when United face Ally McCoist’s side. A winning start for the new management team will salvage United’s season and give hope to supporters whose belief has been sorely tested in a season where they were tipped to be credible challengers to Celtic for the SPL title.