THE most significant tips Grant Brebner acts upon these days are ones advising him to keep his dog off the grass. The Dundee United midfielder turned 27 earlier this month, at the end of a year which began with a spell in a rehab clinic in Hampshire and Gamblers' Anonymous classes to combat a chronic addiction to betting.

The player's problems had been a source of dressing room tittle tattle long before a tabloid newspaper eventually deprived this particular gambler of his anonymity last month, but it is a tribute to his resilience that such problems rarely infiltrated his football, even despite the early season tumult of a snap move from Hibs to Dundee United.

Ahead of the visit of his former team to Tannadice this Monday, Brebner is sitting in a plush hotel brasserie in Edinburgh, speaking lucidly about his efforts to tackle his problems and the fact he has discovered his own alternative therapy. Walking his black labrador around the parks and streets of the capital.

"I don't mind talking about it [the gambling] but I don't like to overdramatise it, because I don't think I ever let itaffect my performances, " Brebner said. "Without blowing my own trumpet I did still win the player of the year at Hibs. It sounds silly but I walk my dog, and it gives me a difference from being selfish. It gives me a perspective to take care of something else. It is probably worse than having a baby. It sleeps now and then, but it is constantly hyper - so I have to get back from training and look after him."

A follower of United's recent form would perhaps suggest that at least Brebner is unique in having some recent experience of holding leads. Ian McCall's side, after all, are only prevented from being bottom of the table by a paltry three goals from Livingston, with the Almondvale side having played a game less. His five seasons at Easter Road - after four seasons as a trainee at Manchester United - may have ended messily, but he has already exorcised some of those demons with a visit to Easter Road in October, a 2-0 defeat that was subsequently avenged in a CiS Cup quarterfinal at Tannadice. Refreshingly, Brebner also refuses to enter into the cliches that accompany so many addictsturned-evangelists.

"At the end of the day I am no expert, " Brebner said. "I am only five minutes into admitting I had a problem.

I'm not going to be preaching or telling people what to do.

But if anybody felt they had enough of a problem to come and speak to me then I would be able to tell them some things. Gambling is something that you don't always lose in but in the long run you usually do. Everybody thinks they are a professional."

Had it not been for a broken arm sustained last January, Brebner may have postponed his rehabilitation until the summer. There was, he claims, no one shattering loss that brought things to a head, rather a growing realisation that the current state of affairs - with losses equalling tens, even hundreds, of thousands of pounds - could not be allowed to continue.

"Football for 90 minutes was a great release for me, " he said. "I probably wouldn't have gone into the rehab until the close season because we were still in the semi-final of the cup. Then I broke my arm and then it was an easy choice to make. A few of the lads knew anyway before it became common knowledge.

Family and friends were the only people that ever really needed to know about it, and Hibs knew about it as well, so it wasn't as if I was running around leading a lie, and that is what matters."

It may have been the calendar year in which he got his life back on track, but in terms of his professional life some of his other 2004 career choices have not turned out exactly as planned. Trading cashstrapped Hibs for an apparent all-star cast at Tannadice was hardly entirely Brebner's idea, but it may have seemed like a good idea at the time, even despite clear signs about the talented youngsters emerging at Easter Road during the last campaign. Since then, however, Hibs have gone on to threaten third place, whilst United have only gone on to threaten Ian McCall's job.

Brebner is still confident things may realign themselves before the end of the season.

"When I left Hibs everybody probably knows what I felt about that, but I wouldn't have left to go to a team I thought were going to underachieve or be second best to anything I had been used to, " Brebner said. "I still think Hibs, although they are doing well just now, they've still got potential for the future.

Dundee United are very much ahere and now team, for getting to cup finals and doing well in the league."

Nonetheless, the midfielder was something of an unorthodox father figure to that team - even stretching so far as accompanying some of them to a high-profile visit to a lapdancing club two seasons ago.

He still takes some sort of pride in their performances.

"For me, It was always just a case of whether they would be able to produce again next year, " he added. "Everybody knows you can have a wonder season and then fizzle out, but credit to them, they have shown the talent that they obviously have got. We were always, and I believe just from reading things in the paper that they still are, a really close knit bunch. There was a lot of young Scottish boys playing together, we were in it together and the way that Hibs are playing just now shows that they have grown up together. The first time I went back to Easter Road it was difficult. It was just a strange feeling and it does take a bit of getting used to, but now genuinely it is just like any other game."

Despite being one of the most effective non-Old Firm midfielders last season, that fractured arm also cost him an appearance in last season's CiS Cup final defeat, leaving a 3-0 Hampden defeat to Celtic in Martin O'Neill's first season as his only major final. It is clear that winning something remains on the 'to do' list, as does an appearance for his country, even if he no longer wakes up every morning thinking about it.

His assessment of his own performances is typically stark. "I'm happy enough with the way that I am playing even though I think I could do a bit better, but the main thing is team performances and points, " he said. "And whether you are a footballer, a painter or decorator or a joiner, if you are not satisfactory in your job you tend to self-criticise a bit.

We got to the stage where the hard luck thing was starting to wear a bit thin. But we are not sitting in the dressing room thinking we are a team in crisis, sure we are in a horrible position in the league but I think we can still play with a bit of confidence."

Brebner, much like Ian McCall, has plenty at stake on Monday afternoon.