Steven Pressley reveals Dundee tactical failure led to Hearts hammering.

Steven Pressley, Dundee’s manager, admits he takes bad results personally and has taken time to recover from the 4-0 defeat to Hearts.

The Dark Blues were heavily beaten by the league leaders, conceding four times and failing to score a single goal. Pressley’s team now sits 11th in the Premiership table, having lost four of their last five matches.

Tactical detail

He admitted that their dismal first-half performance was the result of a tactical error on the pitch. “I’m obviously really disappointed because there was one element in our defensive set-up that didn’t allow us to get the pressure to the ball that we really wanted to get,” the head coach told Courier Sport.

“It was a tactical detail, and I’m not sure why the people involved didn’t follow the instructions we trained so hard for.

“It was a persistent element in the first half that prevented us from playing the way we wanted to.

“We’ve been training it for three months, but for some inexplicable reason, we got stuck in the middle and never completed our goals. We were deeply affected.

That problem also caused us to concede our first goal. “So I was quite unhappy because we wanted to be aggressive but were not.

“And, looking back, we definitely didn’t generate enough opportunities. “We need to make better decisions in possession and during transitions.

We need to make significant improvements in that area. “That’s another source of frustration for me.”

No half-time subs

Despite their dismal performance, Pressley elected not to make any alterations at halftime.

When asked if he was tempted to make adjustments during the break, he responded, “No, I wasn’t. I addressed the issue at halftime.

However, I believed that with the proper transitions, we could still have an impact on them. “We had three or four opportunities to do better, but we didn’t. “It’s extremely frustrating.”

‘I take results very personally’

Despite his cool demeanour in the bench and in post-game interviews, Pressley confesses that frustration sticks with him for some time.

He continued, “It takes me a bit to recover from days like that. I take it quite badly. I was not good company.

“I take the results very personally. “It’s incredibly irritating right now that we seem to be making progress, just to have a setback like the weekend.

“But I suppose that is the voyage. We played well against Celtic, had some positives against Falkirk, and then suffered a setback at the weekend.

“We just have to work incredibly hard on the training ground, identify areas for development, and then put it into practice.

“We’re trying to be more consistent about a number of things. “But I’m also aware that we need to pick up results.”

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