Dundee United manager Jackie McNamara will speak from the heart before his team heads out to face St Johnstone in the William Hill Scottish Cup final.
There will be no prepared notes or rehearsed lines from the Tangerines’ boss.
Instead, he will use whatever words come to him at that moment in the Celtic Park dressing room to inspire his players.
“I won’t prepare any team talk,” declared McNamara.
“As always, it will be done on the spur of the moment. I never write anything down. Instead, I usually talk some guff at the last minute!
“Seriously, though, it is the same at half-time with me. I don’t carry a Filofax or notepad around with me, writing stuff down.
“If someone has made a mistake then it should be important enough for me to remember and not have to write it down. If I don’t remember it then it’s not worth digging somebody up about it.
“Speeches should come from the heart as well as the head. I worked with managers like Martin O’Neill and Tommy Burns at Celtic, who could inspire you and make you feel 10 feet tall.”
“I have taken something from every manager but, ultimately, it’s all about what the lads do once they cross that line.”
McNamara will “possibly” tell his players his all-important team selection today. The doubts during the build-up have been over winger Gary Mackay-Steven and central defender John Souttar, both of whom have had a flu-type virus.
Both players trained on Thursday, though, and the hope is that they will be available, if selected.
So does he already have a starting line-up in mind?
McNamara said: “Sort of, yes, but certain things have changed over the last couple of weeks.
“I have not entirely picked it yet and there are still one or two positions we are looking at.”
McNamara is a man who lives in the present, so it was not a surprise that he hadn’t realised he will become only the third United manager in history after Ivan Golac and Peter Houston to win the Scottish Cup if he masterminds a success over Saints.
“To be honest, I wasn’t aware of that,” he said.
“I never go into that side of things. My focus is always on the players and how they handle it.
“Players have a short career and you want to be remembered as a winner, to say that you’ve lifted a trophy and have the medal to show for it. It hasn’t happened too often in this club’s history.”
McNamara has the task of achieving something which he has failed to do on three ocassions this season get the better of Saints and their manager Tommy Wright.
United were comfortable in the first game of the league campaign, triumphing 4-0 at Tannadice, but the Perth team have since notched up 3-0, 1-0 and 2-0 wins.
The Tangerines gaffer is up for that particular challenge.
“I am disappointed to have lost those games, all in different circumstances,” he said.
“Even if we had won four out of four I would still approach this game in the same manner.
“I have respect for St Johnstone and I know how hard a game it is going to be. They are very experienced and organised, know what they are doing and the midfielders work very hard for their defence.
“They have a good back four and at the other side they have the talisman of Stevie May, who has had a terrific season and can score a goal from nothing.
“That is something we have to be wary of and we have to concentrate fully.”
Any United fan will tell you that lapses at the back have cost the team this season so McNamara will be emphasising the need to stay alert.
“The last few games have seen us lose our concentration and it has cost us goals,” he conceded.
“There are a lot of things you can do to address that. It comes down to awareness, players doing their job properly, speaking to them and just making them aware of the importance of things.
“But we all make mistakes. We all make hundreds of mistakes every day. If my players make them while doing something positive then I will stand by them, but if they are negative that is when I will lose my patience.
“Concentration comes from fitness, awareness and how to prepare. Everything in football comes from the head.
“Ability becomes less and less important at times and quite often mental strength can overtake these things, especially when you are defending you need to be switched on.
“We will train at St Andrews in the morning and then we will head down the road like we did in the semi and other big games down there.”