Free agent Peter Houston keen on return to management

Former Dundee United boss Peter Houston says he is keen to return to management.

And the 54-year-old has hinted that he may be interested in the vacant post at Hearts, if he could be guaranteed control over first-team affairs.

John McGlynn left Hearts by mutual consent on Thursday.

"You'd have to listen to what they had to say," said Houston. "I want to be a manager again and I want to work as soon as I can."

Gary Locke has been put in charge of the Hearts first team for Saturday's Scottish Premier League match against Motherwell.

The Tynecastle side are second bottom of the Scottish Premier League and have sold several players this season.

"I want to go into an environment where I'm going to be able to be in control of the playing budget and the players who come in and players who go out," explained Houston on BBC Radio Scotland's Sportsound programme.

"You don't have total control of the players who go out because if a big transfer fee comes in for one of your best players, you have to accept it.

"But certainly if there's players coming in, and I know there's players out there who would jump at the chance to go to Hearts, then you'd have to listen."

Houstson previously worked with Hearts as a coach and was briefly caretaker manager before becoming assistant to Craig Levein when the latter took over at Tynecastle in 2000.

"I was at Heart of Midlothian when there weren't huge budgets but it was a fantastic football club," added Houston, who left United in January.

"In my opinion, at that time it was the third biggest club in the country - finished third a couple of times, got into Europe a number of times.

"It's a football club that's just needing to be pointed in the right direction and run properly again [such] that you know you're going to get salaries at the end of the month [and] you know you're going to have 20-25 players to work with."