Pressley is looking to brighter days ahead

STEVEN Pressley should be allowed some time to dream. After the trials and tribulations that engulfed and soured his latter months at Tynecastle, the Celtic defender is revelling in the prospect of being part of a club which has a sound management structure and, importantly for the defender, appears willing to let Pressley see out his career in peace. Hopefully, the nightmares are over.

He may have an 18-month deal in his back pocket - many onlookers ludicrously felt Pressley was only capable of playing for another six months, even in this mediocre of Scottish top leagues - but the Scotland international has already set his sights on finishing his playing days at Celtic Park. And far beyond May 2008, if he has his way.

For inspiration, Pressley need and will look no further than the man he will now call "gaffer", Gordon Strachan. The pair overlapped only briefly at Coventry City, but Pressley has always been one to take first impressions seriously - he has made enough positive ones of his own to prove that is the case - and vivid memories from Highfield Road may just be enough to drive the former Hearts captain towards an extended stay in Glasgow.

History will undoubtedly have taught the man they call Elvis that nothing in football can be taken for granted. Nonetheless, Vladimir Romanov is not in charge of Celtic; a basic factor which should supply the ever-impressive Pressley with cause to aim for the realistic goal of yet another contract.

When asked if he already held aspirations of forcing Strachan to offer him a new deal, Pressley replied without a hint of hesitation: "Absolutely, yes. I have been given the opportunity to play here for 18 months but I'd love to prove my worth and be able to extend it beyond then. The only way of doing that is by performing to the appropriate levels and it's up to me to do that.

"Gordon has spoken very positively to me about the possibility of carrying on. He was still playing at the age of 40 when I was at Coventry. His fitness levels were phenomenal and there is no reason why you can't play to that sort of age if you look after yourself and train in the correct manner."

Strachan and Pressley have remained acquaintances rather than firm friends since those days in the Midlands, when Ron Atkinson managed the Sky Blues and Pressley found himself a young man away from home with too much on his mind. Plagued by poor form and an equally inauspicious disciplinary record, the defender - minus his now instantly recognisable shaggy hair and beard - was toiling to come to terms with the untimely death of his father and the effects of homesickness.

"Gary Gillespie was a big help to me at that time, and eventually I came back to Dundee United anyway," Pressley recalls. "But back then, Gordon was an inspiration to younger players because of the way he looked after himself."

Ironic, then, that it is Pressley's very experience which Strachan values so highly to a relatively youthful Parkhead squad. The pair recalled old times and chatted over modern-day football philosophies over a cup of tea in Strachan's Bothwell home last month and the rest, it appears, was straightforward.

Pressley said: "It was very flattering to know that there were interested parties of the calibre of Celtic out there. I do consider myself to be a later developer and feel my best years are now and ahead of me.

"Myself and Gordon had never exchanged regular phone calls, but we had met a number of times over the years; when I went to his house we spoke solely about football, not money. I wanted to hear his thoughts on the game and he wanted to hear mine. When you join any football club, you have to feel that the club want you and you have to have a bond with the manager. That is important to me."

Of equal relevance to Pressley is the probability that he will see through the next year and a half at least while challenging for regular honours. He has just two Scottish league championship medals and the same number of Scottish Cup wins from what should in reality have been a trophy-laden career to date. Unsurprisingly, Pressley did not feel a potential move to Premiership strugglers Charlton Athletic would have allowed him to realise remaining silverware ambitions.

"I didn't think I had anything to prove if I had gone to England," Pressley stressed. "In terms of playing in the Premiership, it was a very attractive proposition, one I thought long and hard about, but the pull of this club was too great for me. History tells you that this club is up there, year in and year out, challenging for honours."

Pressley met with his new colleagues at their team hotel yesterday morning, ahead of their lunchtime kick-off at Fir Park. He insists there will be no problem fitting into an alien dressing room, despite regular on and off-field clashes between Celtic and Hearts in recent times. Celtic captain Neil Lennon and Pressley have had a few "interesting chats", in the words of the defender, with the latter naming Lennon as a "common denominator" in controversial incidents last season.

Perhaps solely in the interests of preserving squad harmony - or maybe just as an indicator of professional respect - Pressley is unwilling to rock that particular boat any further. "There are a lot of good characters within the dressing room and I know a lot of them anyway," he said, with just the hint of a smile. "Neil has been an excellent captain of this club, instrumental in their success, so I'll thoroughly enjoy playing alongside rather than against him."

Pressley is equally entitled to enjoy the remaining years of his playing career. After what has gone before, you get the distinct impression he will.
Ex-Hearts captain still scarred by blows from Romanov era

VICTIMS have become commonplace under the controversial Vladimir Romanov regime at Tynecastle but surely few, if any, deserved that title as little as Steven Pressley.

Friday represented an interesting paradox as Pressley was unveiled to assembled media members as a Celtic player. On the one hand, he was obviously delighted and bursting with optimism over his arrival at the SPL leaders. On the other, the defender's apparent contentment failed to mask an underlying and perfectly understandable upset over the way his career at Tynecastle petered out.

The nuts and bolts of how the Scottish Cup winning captain's Tynecastle spell ultimately came to an end remains open to widespread conjecture but the simple fact that few, if any, supporter or player who has encountered the uncompromising defender during his time in Edinburgh has a bad word to say about him serves as rather compelling evidence for those who question Pressley's professionalism.

While a confidentiality clause ensures, for the immediate future at least, Pressley is unwilling to elaborate on exactly what turbulence he was party to over the last 18 months - his fiercely loyal personality mean it is unlikely he would speak out against Hearts in any case - the man who spent more than eight years at the club remains clearly hurt by events which led to his acrimonious departure.

"I still hoped that, in the years ahead at Hearts, I would be challenging for silverware, that was certainly the hope after winning the Scottish Cup in May," Pressley said. "We were looking to continue vying for silverware on a regular basis."

Such a concept has now been banished from Pressley's brain and he admits that parting with the club he grew to love was a more painful process than he had envisaged. So hurtful, in fact, that the Elgin-born defender actually needed his month away from football in order to get his head around the whole debacle. Make no mistake, these mental scars will take time to fully heal.

He added: "I had the opportunity to take some time with my family and enjoy time, including Christmas, with my family for once. There had been pressure for a considerable time. I was very passionate about it and when you are passionate about something, it can definitely affect you.

"It [the time off] was very important. I actually enjoyed the break; it took several weeks to get the fire back in my belly, probably because of the circumstances in which I left Hearts. There had been a lot of scrutiny of what had happened."

Pressley has expressed a heartfelt wish, too, that his close friend and a player he groomed into one of the finest Scottish players of his generation, Andy Webster, recovers from a low-key start to his career at Wigan in order to fulfil his undoubted potential. Webster has been linked with Rangers, yet Pressley hopes the former Arbroath man can become a regular pick in the Premiership.

Pressley said: "If a move happens, it's great for Andy because he is not featuring in the Wigan team. Everybody knows how highly I rate him. For his own sake he needs to be playing first-team football but hopefully he gets a chance to do that at Wigan."

Taken from the Scotsman