Jason deVos has been tagged an animal and a dressing room back stabber in the last month but the worst thing has been not having Terry Butcher around as his own personal agony uncle. The rugged Dundee United skipper has had to endure the worst few weeks of his career without his old coach and confidante. Last season deVos could go to Butcher when the chips were down and receive no-nonsense advice from a player who had seen and done it all with Ipswich. Rangers and England.

The veteran stopper's been badly missed since his sudden departure along with the man who signed deVos from Darlington - Paul Sturrock. Never more so than when Dundee boss Ivan Bonetti and then team-mate Alex Mathie singled him out. Butcher was no coward or quitter in his playing days- and he would be proud of the way the Canadian has faced up to his critics square-on. He's vowed to emerge from the trauma with his reputation enhanced. He's also desperate to play an inspira- tional part in dragging crisis-torn United clear of the SPL basement. DeVos is an icon back home as cap- tain of the national side - but he has never known such intense scrutiny of his ability and character. Thousands of Internet chat lines back across the Atlantic have been feeding on the sensational headlines generated in Scotland by the vicious attacks from| Bonetti and Mathie. Even his parents, other family members and close friends in Montreal have been dragged into it taking calls from local reporters staggered by the quantities of mud being thrown at one of their biggest sporting heroes. They simply don't recognise the nasty bit of work that is supposedly deVos.

The 26-year-old was staggered by Bonetti's rage against him last month after a joint challenge with kid Kevin McDonald left Fabian Caballero out for the season. But dealing with that was a piece of cake compared with the sensational claim from Mathie that he couldn't be trusted and was going behind the backs of his team-mates to grass them up in the manager's office. That was the worst accusation that any professional footballer could ever have labelled at them. He could have done with Butcher in the trench alongside him. As he geared up to face Hibs today he said: "Having Butch around was great. He was somebody I could go to for advice. "After all, he'd seen it and done it for club and country as a central defender himself. "There was no situation I could get into that he hadn't been in. "I did a lot of work with him at the start to try and improve my game. That is something I still need to do. "I need to add things to my game to get to the next level. "But I am lucky that Paul Hegarty has come back to Dundee United.

Like Butch, he has done it all in football and is a United legend. The first train- ing session we had with Paul was bril- liant. Very positive. "He didn't criticise at all, he just made suggestions about what we could do to improve our performances. "You can't help but listen to a guy with the experience he's got. "Paul's one of the best centre halves British football has ever produced - and he's someone I look up to for what he has achieved at this club. "But I believe all the players here are fortunate to have a coaching staff of Paul, Maurice Malpas and John Blackley. "It was really disappointing for me to see Paul Sturrock leave the club. He paid money to take me from Darlington and he had belief in my ability. He's determined not to allow anything to sidetrack him from his mission of keeping United up. He said: "My goal is to get Dundee United off the bottom of the table. "To do that I need to be 100 per cent focused on football. Nothing is going to dis- tract me from that. "It's disappointing when these sort of things happen and it's a bit of a mystery as to why anyone would say anything like that about me. "But I have discussed it with the players. They know that it's not true and it's forgot-

He added: "I've been very impressed with Alex Smith as a manager. "I feel that given time he can turn this around for us. "He has the knowledge of the game, the ideas that we need to start winning matches and get us up the table. "Like every other player I felt insecure when Alex came in. "New managers always have new ideas and you never really know if you are going to fit into their plans. "Alex pulls players aside a bit more than Paul and has a quiet word about their own game and things they need to improve on. He certainly has a more one-on-one approach." Compounding an agonising season has been the rank failure of Canada to qualify for the 2002 World Cup finals. DeVos knew as he scored the goal that won the Gold Cup last February that the team would have to contend with a new phenomenon — expectancy. He said: Things did not go well for Canada in World Cup qualifying. "In winning the Gold Cup we had appeared to take a few steps forward. But with that expectations also grew dramati- cally. "So to fail was a bitter pill to swallow - but a group containing Mexico, Panama and Trinidad and Tobago was always going to be hard."

DeVos experienced serious lows in two years at Darlington. He said: "In my first year we toiled to get results and had to fight to avoid relegation. "We didn't get paid on time one month and that was a new experience for me. It was hard to deal with. "But in terms of difficult situations where you have to dig in and fight this is certainly right up there. "But we are the only ones who can get ourselves out of it. "I don't believe we deserve to be where we are. ('take it personally. Every time we lose a goal it hurts badly. "Losing is not something I'll ever accept and we will not be chucking in the towel. l feel a lot better for having had a short break from international football. I feel like I'm again the player I can be." ©Supergoals