The line is delivered in Steven Pressley’s trademark matter-of-fact fashion. Not designed to grab headlines but brutally honest and quietly dramatic as he offers an insight into his return to football management this season at Dundee.
‘I’ve thought about quitting the job numerous times,’ he says. ‘The option I had was to quit and probably never manage again or to have to face it head-on.
‘I think it’s natural to think about quitting. Even as a player, I was plagued with uncertainties, with difficulties. I can take some pride in the fact that I face up to challenges and I don’t want to quit anything but of course I had those thoughts, plenty of times.’
Pressley was under pressure before he’d even got his feet under the desk at Dens Park. Three years playing on the other side of the road for Dundee United was a problem for some Dark Blues fans. Others pointed to the five and a half years he’d been away from team management. Four of those years were far from the coalface as head of individual development at Brentford.
Losing to Airdrie and Alloa in the League Cup group stage didn’t help the settling-in process. Nor did the long wait until September 20 for a Premiership win. Nor did the admission that, if the Dundee supporters were looking for a proven managerial winner, then he wasn’t that man. Pressley was a popular choice to be the top flight’s first sacking of the season.
‘I genuinely don’t have anything to do with social media but you can’t hide completely from what’s being said and I have to be made aware of the noise so I can try to manage it,’ says Pressley.
Steven Pressley has opened up about the ‘vulnerabilities’ he has battled throughout his career
‘We’re all very vulnerable in our own way. Did I enjoy it? Of course I didn’t. Was it challenging? Did I think at times this isn’t for me? Of course I did. But I like to think I can face up to adversity. I don’t think you ever get anywhere without a struggle.’
For 52 year old Pressley, everything was coming under scrutiny. Not just results and performances and the time it was taking to get a much-changed squad into acceptable shape. No, his deadpan demeanor in interviews was raising the hackles for some as well.
‘People probably never truly knew me or understood me at that stage and maybe I didn’t allow them to know me,’ he reflects. ‘I think that’s a generational thing. I was brought up in a football world where you couldn’t show your weakness.
‘Nowadays, I can talk about my vulnerabilities. That affected me badly as a player. There were nights when I was away playing for Scotland that I never slept before games because of the uncertainty I felt about being out of my comfort zone. People looked at this big, raw centre back who they maybe thought could handle anything but that wasn’t the case.
‘I’ve always had lots of insecurities but I think my strength is to keep going. Not to pretend they don’t exist but to try to battle through them.’
After managing at Falkirk, Coventry City, Fleetwood Town, Pafos and Carlisle United, Pressley stepped out of the firing line and into the security of that development job at Brentford. He nods when I suggest that could have been a job for life.
Pressley looked doomed after an inauspicious and unpopular start to life in the Dundee dugout
‘I actually softened up in those four years because you go from the pressures of being a player, then immediately into management, so nothing changes in terms of intensity,’ he says. ‘I came away from the front line and into a much more secure existence with much less day-to-day pressure. So coming back into club management was like a whirlwind. It felt unusual. I wasn’t sure I liked it..
‘I’ve always tried to learn and improve as I’ve gone along, whether it was from my sackings or setbacks or whatever it was. I did a number of university courses. Prior to taking the job at Dundee, I finished my degree in strategic leadership. And as a result of that I was on the pathway to become a technical or sporting director. That looked like the next step for me.
‘But I still had a little bit of an itch to manage again and (Dundee technical director) Gordon (Strachan) contacted me. He was a big pull for me because in my first managerial job at Falkirk I was very fortunate to have a mentor in the great Alex Smith. That was really important to me as a young manager. And the trust and support I have from Gordon, plus his knowledge and experience, is equally important to me right now.
‘He understands what it takes to build a team and a squad. You can only build up a mutual trust with your players over a period of time. I had a good think about that when I was at Brentford without any management pressures.
‘Many of the standout players in that team took 12 to 18 months before they settled and lots of people in the meantime were writing them off. The reality was they took time to find their feet but patience is not a big thing in football.
‘Understanding the process is so important and that takes me back to Gordon because I would only have come back into management in a situation like this.
Pressley, up against Germany’s Bobic in 2003, says he struggled to sleep before big matches
‘My experience and my time in football has told me you either need huge resources to go out and buy the best players. That doesn’t always work but at least you’ve got a right chance. Or you need time. That doesn’t guarantee you anything but it gives you a much better opportunity.
Pressley has grown in popularity with Dundee fans over the course of the season as the team has developed. Wingers Cameron Congreve and Tony Yogane have supplied some serious attacking threat, Ethan Hamilton is a powerful presence in midfield with an eye for a spectacular goal and home-grown centre back Luke Graham will swell the coffers in the summer with admirers queuing up to make the club an offer it can’t refuse.
But, before the squad can be reassembled, Dundee need to seal their survival in the Premiership. There have been times when it seemed they were edging towards safety but they remain only five points above the relegation play-off spot.
Pressley’s nodding again. ‘Over the Christmas period we won three games in a row and that projected us out of the bottom two or three and gave us a bit of distance. We did that over eight days and I was very much aware that other teams could do the same thing and it could all change again, very quickly.
‘We’re not safe. I’ve never thought we were safe. If it takes us to go to the last game of the season to stay in the league then that’s what we’ll have to do. That’s always been the goal. To stay in the Premiership and allow ourselves to grow again in the summer.’
Dundee will hope to do to Celtic today what they did to the defending champions, with Brendan Rodgers at the helm, when they last came to Dens back in October. Celtic also lost on their last trip to Tayside, beaten by Dundee United at Tannadice going into the international break.
Congreve celebrates after an own goal from Carter-Vickers in a 2-0 win for Dundee in October
The race for the title looks like it could go the distance and Pressley is well-placed to pass judgment, having played for all three teams with their eyes on the big prize.
‘My first thought is we’ve needed this,’ he says. ‘Usually, when you kick off the season, the ambition for six or seven of the teams is to stay in the league and only two are seriously thinking they can win it. The great thing about this season is that almost every team still has something to play for.
‘Motherwell have maybe dropped out of the title race in the last few weeks but it’s been refreshing. It’s been what our game needs because I think there’s been so much complacency around. Hopefully the progress made by Hearts, Motherwell and Falkirk pushes the Old Firm to do better and makes teams like us aspire to be operating at the upper end of the league. Our league has desperately, desperately needed this freshness.’
There’s a smile as I drag him back to my original question. Would he be happy if his old team Hearts became the first non-Old Firm title winners in 40 years?
‘Yes, I think it would be refreshing because, as we’ve been saying, the league does need a shake-up,’ says Pressley. ‘Nobody likes predictable. And things can go stale when they just stay the same.
‘I worry about the development of our young players and I do believe the league is at a stage where the 12-team set-up doesn’t allow enough breathing space. There’s too much pressure on managers to get results and that affects the freedom they have to give more youngsters some game time.
Pressley lifted the Scottish Cup with Hearts in 2006 and would love to see them win the league
‘There are a lot of issues to be considered and hopefully the current state of play shakes things up and re-focuses people on changes that could be made.
‘The league has needed this. Look at the style of football Motherwell have produced. We need more in the way of fresh ideas within our game.
‘Who would have guessed that the Top Six would finish the way it has? That’s what we have to be aiming for. And not just us. Kilmarnock, St Mirren and everyone else who’s finished in the bottom half are seeing what’s possible.
‘But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First we need to cement our place in the Premiership.’
