Scotland assistant manager Peter Houston has refuted criticism of the Scottish Premier League by Newcastle manager Alan Pardew.

On reflecting upon Fraser Forster's loan spell at Celtic, Pardew suggested that he was unimpressed with the standard of football in Scotland.

But Dundee United boss Houston, who is currently on duty with the Scotland squad ahead of their Carling Nations games with Wales and Republic of Ireland, rejected suggestions of a lack of quality in the Scottish top flight.

Houston said: "It's not even worth commenting on it because we have international players playing in the SPL who could walk into the Newcastle team.

"They play at a very high level in European football, on a number of occasions as well."

The Scotland assistant went on to highlight several examples: "If you take Rangers for instance, their runs in Europe in the last couple of years have been fantastic so that's them playing at a high level and in the SPL.

"Scott Brown has played in the Champions League (for Celtic) as well. Alan is entitled to his opinion but it is not something with which I agree."

Pardew had stated: "I think he's coming back to a completely different level of football, I'll tell you that now. We have watched that division and watched him all year.

"We've been disappointed with the quality of the games, other than the occasional Rangers versus Celtic game, and even some of those have been poor."