Source: FOOTYMAD
United Ready For Action
European football holds no fears for Peter Houston and his players Dundee United manager Peter Houston is confident that his players will be able to cope with the occasion of returning to the European stage - because they proved they have the required bottle back in May at Hampden. The Scottish Cup winners take on AEK Athens at Tannadice tomorrow aiming to get to the Europa League group stages for their first time. The preparations for how to cope with the Greek side have been hampered as the Greek season is yet to start so Houston has no idea what sort of form the opposition are in. Houston admits the preparation for meeting Dusan Bajevic's side is similar to the cup final build-up and expects his players to respond in the same way. He said: "It's been the same as any preparation for a massive game, the Scottish Cup was a massive game for us to try and win so it has felt similar. This is my first European match as a manager, although it's not the first time I've coached in Europe as I did that with Craig Levein at Hearts a few times. But the whole road leading into it is very different from the SPL because you know the players inside out, whereas here they are not so familiar. St Mirren last weekend was new because there were new players but generally when you play Rangers or Celtic or Aberdeen you know who you are up against. So this is a whole new challenge and as our players won't know the AEK Athens boys we have had to build up a dossier. Stevie Kean at Blackburn has been a great help and so has Kenny McDowall at Rangers. They gave us DVDs of the pre-season tournament in Australia and it proved to me that AEK Athens are a right good side because they won the tournament convincingly. They scored five against Sydney, two against Blackburn and beat Rangers. They have quality in the forward areas, they are solid at the back and they have two excellent sitting midfielders in Pantelis Kafes and Papa Bouba Diop, if he plays. Savvas Gentsoglou is a very good player too so we are under no illusions about the task we face. But if we were to win this over the two legs it would be a huge bonus and it would prove we don't have a bad squad of players ourselves.'' Houston has not been too disappointed by the fact he has been unable to see AEK in the flesh as his hours in front of the television have given him an insight into their style of play. He added: "I would have liked to have watched them personally but I also thought that the games in Australia were high tempo. I think they will play a similar game here, with a back four, two sitting then three and one. The four attackers will change positions and they have some top players, like the young Brazilian Leonardo and the captain Nikos Liberopoulos. He's experienced and plays off either the Australian Nathan Burns or Rafik Djebbour. I've been working on giving our lads information on their system and how we are going to counter it.'' Celtic raided the Greek club for defender Daniel Majstorovic this week and Houston does not see facing AEK as a much bigger task than facing the Old Firm. He went on: "It's difficult to say how they'd do here. Celtic have a new team and they beat Rangers but Rangers created a lot of chances against them in Sydney and that's given me a bit of heart. They keep the ball well, as do most European teams, but Rangers kept the ball well against them and Steven Whittaker put in some good crosses and Kenny Miller almost got on the end of a few things. It gives you a bit of hope. As far as where they would finish in the league they would probably be in the top two or three." Editor Ger Harley (ger@scottishfitba.net)Admin Team (admin@scottishfitba.net)This is Scottish-Fitba.Net
