Pressley battles through dramas to lead from heart

Pressley has experienced a few dramas and crises in his eight years at Tynecastle but nothing could eclipse this turbulent campaign that has embraced the best and worst of times. The high of sealing Champions League football ten days ago has been offset by the sacking of not one, but two managers, as well as a chief executive and a chairman.

*
He diplomatically skirts around the question asking which was his worst day. “A number of them but none stand out above the others,” the Scotland defender smiled. “We have had to cope with a lot this season, but if we were to win the Scottish Cup, that will all be overlooked.”

Pressley has had more on his plate than just taking care of Dado Prso or John Hartson. He had to confront Vladimir Romanov. The only man whose opinion matters at Tynecastle — just ask John Robertson, George Burley, Graham Rix, Phil Anderton and George Foulkes — has found a match in his rugged captain. Pressley led a deputation of players to meet the owner after the Lithuanian was reported to be selecting the side and not Rix.

In the end, Rix suffered the same fate as Burley et al but at the end of a long campaign it is the same faces that Pressley will look into in the dressing-room today at Hampden Park and believe that this Hearts side has the ability to deliver the first piece of silverware since he joined in 1998, just a month after the Scottish Cup had been paraded around Edinburgh’s streets thronged by 200,000 people.

“Anyone who witnessed the scenes after we defeated Aberdeen to get into the Champions League will be aware of the spirit that courses through this team,” Pressley reflected. “That was the most significant part of our season. We have been lucky to have some fantastic personal displays, from people like Paul Hartley and Craig Gordon, but really everyone contributes. Even the players who are not in the team. We are fortunate that the players who have not been able to get a game have got right behind those who have. There has been no unrest.”

Perhaps that is just as well. There has been more than enough drama elsewhere in the club to make up for that. “I have learnt a lot about myself and about the captaincy,” Pressley acknowledged. “From a personal point of view, I have just tried to learn from every situation. I think it is important to improve every year as a captain but it has been a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week job and it has been very stressful. However, this club means a lot to me and it is important that it functions and gets success.”

If that seems to be dipping a toe into Romanov’s waters, then Pressley is keen to state his admiration for the millionaire who has transformed the club even if he is not entirely sure that reaching the cup final and the Champions League has vindicated Romanov’s trigger- happy employment policy.

“I am the first to say that I have not agreed with every decision that Mr Romanov has made but the one thing that cannot be questioned is his commitment to this club,” Pressley declared. “He wants success. He has ruffled a few feathers but if we get into the Champions League group stage and win the Scottish Cup, that is success.

“This could be a springboard for Hearts. This club needs to win trophies on a far more regular basis than it has. We also need to prove that we can sustain a challenge to Celtic and Rangers every season. It’s not good just doing it once. When I was at Dundee United, before I came to Tynecastle, we finished behind Celtic and Rangers and then did not follow that up.

“This is the first time in a while that the cup final has not involved either side of the Old Firm. As for the Premierleague, finishing second was a great achievement. The last time Rangers finished outside the top two was 20 years ago and Hearts were second then too.”

If Pressley sounds like a committed adversary of the Glagow duopoly, then it is a role he has adapted to. He began his career at Rangers and won two titles, a Scottish Cup and played in the Champions League before he was out of his teens. “You believe that winning is the norm at a club like Rangers,” Pressley reflected. “It’s only when you leave Ibrox that you realise how hard it is to achieve success.

“It has been eight years for me at Tynecastle. I went there just after they had won the Scottish Cup in 1998. I thought another one would come sooner but it has not. It’s 13 years since I was on that winning side in the Scottish Cup final with Rangers when we beat Aberdeen. I have a winner’s medal but I don’t look at it. It’s in a cupboard somewhere. I only played a very small part in a very successful Rangers team but it would give me much more satisfaction if we won the trophy at Hearts. It would rank among the greatest achievements in my career. I have had a long wait and that’s why I am desperate to experience that again.”

Yet Pressley realises that if ever there was an occasion that could go wrong, it is this one. In the most capricious Scottish Cup for years, laced with more shocks than ever before, the club that seems haunted by slip-ups facing the one that is punching above its weight, seems like recipe for disaster. “Gretna reaching the final has been a great achievement,” the Hearts captain said.

“I know all our fans are talking about us winning the trophy but it is not like that in the dressing-room. We know how hard it will be. Our toughest game in the cup so far was at home to Partick Thistle in the quarter-finals, who play in the same second division that Gretna ran away with.

“This is the first final in while without the Old Firm and that is a breath of fresh air. It is what our game has been crying out for for years. I am sure most of the neutrals will be cheering for Gretna. If that’s pressure, it is something we would enjoy. The semi-final at Hampden against Hibernian was significant because that was the moment, with 25,000 of our fans there, that we realised the true potential of this club.”

HEARTS (possible 4-4-2): C Gordon — R Neilson, S Pressley, I Tall, P Fyssas — S Mikoliunas, P Hartley, Aguiar, R Skacel — E Jankauskas,
R Bednar.

GRETNA: (possible 3-5-2) A Main — M Birch, C Innes, D Townsley — R McGuffie, D Nicholls, J O’Neil, S Tosh, G Skelton — K Deuchar,
J Grady.

Referee: D McDonald.

Taken from timesonline.co.uk