Steven Pressley admitted he has had to toughen up since returning to management with Dundee. The 52-year-old had been out of the frontline for several years, working as head of individual development at Brentford.
He left that role last summer and was immediately enticed back into management for the first time in five years by the Dark Blues. The former Dundee United player’s appointment was hardly met with open arms, but he quickly won over the doubters.
Pressley admitted it was a culture shock going back into the firing line. He claimed: “You definitely mentally soften when you’re away from it. I wasn’t truly prepared for football management again and I took time to adjust.
“Being over five years away from the front line, you change as a person and you soften. When you do something repetitively it becomes normalised but I hadn’t been under that intense pressure for a long time. So it took time to get back into the groove, harden up a little bit.”
Family sacrifices and flat-sharing
The head coach was candid enough to admit there were times when he didn’t enjoy being back in the technical area. The biggest challenge for him was being away from his family, who remained down south.
The ex-Coventry City and Falkirk manager ended up flat-sharing with Barry Nicholson or staying back with his mum. Pressley said: “Did I enjoy being back in? Truthfully, not at times but there were times I did. It was difficult, really really difficult at some moments.
“It wasn’t ideal with my family situation with my wife staying down south. That is changing this year, she is coming up so things will be better. Last season, during the early months when things were not going well and you’re going back to an empty apartment, it’s not great. It became better when I moved in with Baz, that made things easier.”
Football perspective unchanged
The former Scotland star admitted that the good thing was that very little changed in terms of the game. He had also had a different insight as an individual coach. Pressley added: “Football-wise, things hadn’t changed all that much but what I did find is that when I became an individual development coach, I’d always looked at the game from a tactical, team perspective.
“So doing my previous role, it took me time to adjust to that. I was looking at the game on an individual basis for that, then I’m back in management and it’s about the team as well.”
Dundee are actively working on a number of transfer fronts, but have still to make their first signing ahead of the window. They are also likely to lose top defender Luke Graham. Several top clubs including Rangers are preparing summer offers.
