Houston: Future's bright, future's orange

Peter Houston says Dundee United have already achieved a points target - but says they could be toasting something more tangible by the summer. The Tannadice boss saw his third-placed side extend their lead over nearest rivals Hibernian to eight points with a late 1-0 success at St Johnstone on Easter Monday.Jon Daly's 83rd-minute header won the Tayside derby at McDiarmid Park after Slovak goalkeeper Dusan Pernis saved Liam Craig's poor penalty 13 minutes earlier.United are now only five points behind second-placed Celtic and have an Active Nation Scottish Cup semi-final against First Division Raith Rovers to look forward to on Sunday at Hampden.Houston is refusing to get carried away, but admits surpassing last season's points total of 53 in the Scottish Premier League is already an achievement for this campaign.He said: "We take one game at a time and we'll continue to do that. We can't look too far ahead."We are not that good that we can look at the next three or four games and think we're going to take 'x' amount of points."I'm not really bothered about the Old Firm, I'm more concerned about United. I said when I took over, even under Craig Levein at the beginning of the season, we want to achieve more points than we did last year."We are sitting on 58 points, that's five points more already with still six league games to go."We are getting better, we have a good squad of players."United are unbeaten in eight matches and look odds-on for the Europa League next season.Houston believes their defensive strength is coming to the fore at a critical time.He added: "St Johnstone had a spell of four or five corners in the first half and we headed every one clear."Recently, we lost four goals at Kilmarnock when we lost every header. We have learned and picked up from that."The home side were unlucky losers as they remained three points behind Hearts in the race for the top six.The Tynecastle team can now secure a spot in the top half by earning a point against Kilmarnock on Saturday, with Saints travelling to Aberdeen 24 hours later.Perth boss Derek McInnes has seen his side surpass expectations to mount a top-six bid on their return to the SPL and feels his team can be proud whatever happens.He said: "We are not far away from United. Their squad is the accumulation of three or four years' work."They just keep doing the right things, keep the ball going forward, do the ugly side of the game well and know that they can affect it with a bit of quality."That's the game in the Premier League, we are not far away from it. We should be pleased with our efforts this season but we want to finish strongly."

Source: Team_Talk