Dundee United will be holed up at Tannadice all week preparing for Saturday’s Scottish Cup final.
Training and preparation is to be conducted within the confines of the club’s home rather than St Andrews where they normally train.
“It’s going to be a closed-doors approach this week,” said manager Peter Houston.
“We’re making a deliberate attempt to keep things in-house as much as possible.
“We’ve got a lot of work still to do in terms of preparation which will carry on up until the last minute.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time watching DVDs of Ross County parts of which I’ll be showing the players.
“They’ve already beaten Hibs and Celtic to get to the final and I’ve been looking over some of their first division games as well.
“Now I’ll be picking out certain bits to show the guys the dangers they possess but also things we might want to work on.”
He added, “We always prepare thoroughly especially when we’re coming up against teams our lads perhaps don’t know much about taking it down to the level of painting a picture for individuals of the players they’ll be directly up against.”Starting lineupHouston is all but settled on his starting lineup. However, with Danny Cadamarteri, Mihael Kovacevic and Paul Dixon all in the care of physio Jeff Clarke, the manager is some way off determining the make-up of the bench.
“I more or less know my cup final team,” he said.
“But I’ve not even thought about the subs yet. I’m leaving that for a few days until we have a better idea about one or two of the injured boys.
“Kovacevic is going through his paces by Jeff Clarke to see if the hamstring would stand up to any hard training. Whether he’s ready or not is another matter.
“It’s obviously a concern that he’s not played for a while. But we’re short of defenders so he could come into the equation if we need him.
“Paul Dixon has been trying like a bear, too, but he’s not trained either. I’m not ruling him out yet.
“But you have to be fair to everyone connected with the club and, if something were to happen to someone inside the first five minutes and he goes on then has to come off, then the idea backfires.
“We’ll wait until the end of the week with these two and Danny.”
Robertson had thought involvement in the final was beyond him after only just returning from a horrendous time with groin trouble, but he looks to have done enough to make the bench.
“Scott Robertson is a lot more ahead of Kovacevic and Dixon,” said Houston.
“Scott, in the last 10 days or so, has got a fair bit of game time under his belt.
“He’s not back to his best yet but he’s getting there and I would have no qualms putting him on. The bottom line is that he’s now pain-free.”