Levein: Calderwood so consistent

Both of the New Firm rivals are engaged in the battle for third place in the Scottish Premier League - along with Levein's former club Hearts - and meet in a eagerly-anticipated encounter at Pittodrie this weekend.Calderwood led Aberdeen to third place two seasons ago and excelled in the UEFA Cup, getting to the group stages, while Levein understands what it takes to hoist a team to the 'best of the rest' title, having done it during his time at Tynecastle.The United manager also knows teams usually have their best talent cherry-picked after finishing third and that was certainly the case for the Dons, who have lost skipper Russell Anderson, Barry Nicholson and Chris Clark over the past 18 months.Despite those departures, Calderwood has still kept Aberdeen in a competitive position and his opposite number appreciates how difficult that is to do.He said: "It's not easy to have a team up challenging for third three seasons in a row."I know from my time at Hearts how difficult it is. When you have some success, other teams look at your players and, more often than not, you have to rebuild a bit."Jimmy has had that; he's lost quality players from his team but he's managed to maintain their standards."It's not easy for any of us outwith the Old Firm to get that level of consistency."We're all a bit unpredictable; on their day, Aberdeen are excellent and you can say that for a lot of the teams in this league."Nobody is consistent enough to run away ahead; if they were, they'd have taken the third place by now."United have been off-form of late, having won only two of their last eight matches, but Levein sees no reason to panic.One area he is keen to see his players improve on is their defensive record - they have not kept a clean sheet in the SPL since November - but he's confident they are about to get back to their usual ways.He said: "We need to improve defensively; that's something we've talked about and have been working on."I want to see more clean sheets because that's what our good form earlier in the season was built on."I was disappointed with the way we finished last season but, this time round, I'm confident we'll end much stronger."United will have Prince Buaben and Lee Wilkie back in action after they picked up knocks against Inverness last weekend.One player who will not feature, though, is recent signing James Wesolowski, who is recovering from a broken ankle and needs another week's training before he can be considered.Levein said: "Prince is back in training, as is Lee Wilkie, so I expect the pair of them to be fine."James Wesolowski won't be in the squad though. He had a bit of a hold-up at the start of the week with tight hamstrings and that has knocked him back a bit."He should be fine for next week and if not, we've got a wee break after that and he'll definitely be ready when that's over."

Source: Team_Talk