A lot of water has gone under the bridge since Ray McKinnon and myself were Dundee United team-mates.
He was a character back then and had terrific ability.
Ray was probably more athletic than some people think but maybe that was one of the sides of his game that he could have worked on a bit more.
He had a good career, and played with guys like Roy Keane in his time at Nottingham Forest.
After our careers went in different directions I used to bump into him from time to time in Dundee.
I’ve never worked with him but I know people who have, and they are all very impressed with Ray.
It comes across that he’s a guy with real authority in a dressing room and has confidence in his methods.
If the players at United don’t enjoy working under him and don’t get behind him then they really do need to take a look at themselves.
That authority and confidence will be needed at Tannadice, that’s for sure. Because it goes without saying that he’s got a big job on his hands.
I like the fact that he’s found his own way to this stage.
He’s not had a big job handed to him. He started off at the juniors and has gone through two of the lower leagues.
Ray’s background with the SFA is a big positive as well.
Developing players is what he’s all about and that’s what Dundee United have to be all about as well.
It was encouraging to read that Ray will be making up his own mind on the players already at Tannadice. What he may or may not have been told is irrelevant.
Sometimes it’s only when you start working with a player that you realise what you’ve got.
But after that first task of assessing his current playing squad, he’ll bring in his own men and the biggest job then begins – creating a positive feeling at the club again.
If positivity and enthusiasm comes naturally to you, it’s a big advantage.
In the long-term, Ray will have his own ideas about how involved he wants to get with the various age groups at United.
For a while, it might just be the first team he’s concerning himself with.
If it was me, though, I’d be looking at the methodology of player development, all the way from the under-nines to the under-20s.
That will be fundamental to the future of the club.
One of the big problems can be a disconnect between the first team management and age groups.
United are probably as low as a club as they ever have been in my memory so there can’t be any suggestion of changing manager anytime soon – whatever the start to Ray’s time in charge may bring.
He has to be allowed to get on with it.
Ray will know how big the challenge is. But I suspect that’s why he took it on in the first place.
My son Harvey is back home after his first season with the club.
We watched the Kilmarnock match together and he was really pleased to see a few of the academy boys getting a game at Rugby Park.
One of the things I said to him after the game was that in football you can never sit back and rest on what you’ve done.
It becomes irrelevant.
They did OK but within an hour of that game they should already have been thinking about how they will make sure they’re in the team when United next play.
You have to do it again, again, again and again.
It doesn’t need me to say that centre-back isn’t an area of strength for England at the moment.
The fact that Roy Hodgson has only picked three in his provisional squad for the Euros – none of whom are in brilliant form – tells you everything.
When you go through the best centre-backs in the Premier League, now that John Terry is getting near to the end of his career, none of them are English.
Often they just don’t defend their penalty box well enough.
That was what Terry was so good at – and still is. He doesn’t get pulled out of position. That makes it very difficult to score against you.
In the recent game against West Ham, Man United’s Chris Smalling was dragged into places he didn’t need to be and had to rely on his physical attributes to save himself.
England will have no choice but to try and attack in the tournament.
Looking at the midfielders and forwards he has gone for, I think my old Blackburn manager Roy Hodgson has been learning from Pochettino and Klopp and will try to press high up the pitch to take the pressure off his centre-backs.
At Blackburn everything was well-drilled, excessively so. It wasn’t something I particularly enjoyed. There was a monotony about training.
It didn’t feel like we were being conditioned for a game.
International football can afford to be a bit more structured because you don’t get together very often but you still need to allow boys to go out and express themselves with freedom.
That’s what England will have to do at the Euros.
Another of my former managers, Alan Pardew will lead Crystal Palace into an FA Cup final at the weekend.
He’s had the advantage of being able to make the competition his priority for a few weeks.
But I still don’t think it will be enough to beat Man United.
Playing a rearranged game against Bournemouth isn’t really an inconvenience and I think they’ll have too much for Palace.
Before that it’s the Europa League.
I fancy Liverpool to win that. They seem to be a team that is improving all the time and Klopp is the type of manager who will make sure his side are really positive in a final, which is the way you need to be.
