New boss wants to build on the foundations
Fleetwood Town’s new manager Steven Pressley stated that the ambition and the stability at the Club were two of a number of factors that attracted him to the post.Pressley succeeded Graham Alexander this afternoon and was unveiled to the national media during a press conference at Highbury Stadium.
He praised former boss Graham Alexander for the foundations he had built, and now hopes to progress the Club further.
In an exclusive interview with the Club’s official website, Pressley admits he is looking forward to the challenge ahead.
He said: “There were many things that attracted me to this job. Firstly the ambition of the football club and secondly the stability of the football club and the infrastructure.
“When you come here you can feel the drive and the motivation from within the Club. It has grown dramatically over the past nine to ten years.
“They have a fantastic stadium and incredible training base which is fit for the Premier League. It’s a wonderful Club with great ambition.
“I spoke to the chairman during the earlier part of the week and we had a good conversation over the telephone. I then spoke to my representatives who arranged for me to come up on Monday.
“The chairman had done all his research on me and probably knew me better than I did! The truth is that we seem to fit and that’s vitally important.
“A manager has to fit the football club and I think the fit is good. I have the same thoughts and the same progression as the chairman.
“There will be a lot of hard work as we are currently in a poor predicament in terms of league positioning, but that gives us a scope to really develop the players.”
Neil MacFarlane has joined Pressley’s coaching team, while Chris Lucketti will remain as his assistant manager.
“This is a job I’m so excited about and I know Neil is too. This Club has ambition and hopefully we can continue to enhance the very good work done by the previous managers.
“There’ll be no hand grenade from me. We have very good reports on the current staff who have worked exceptionally well at this Club.
“They can very much help us and Chris will assist Neil and help with me and I’m really looking forward to working with him.”
Pressley’s first challenge will be that of his former employers Coventry City when they visit the Fylde Coast on Saturday afternoon.
“It’s amazing and that’s the type of scenarios football throws up. I had two terrific years at Coventry but two challenging ones.
“I think I experienced every circumstance that a football manager could experience, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.
“After losing my job I was extremely disappointed, angry and bitter to a degree because of the work we had done there.
“We worked tirelessly to stabilise and try and turn that club around. After the initial two months of anger you start thinking more clearly.
“The important thing is over the last four or months, I’ve spent time analysing and looking over the initial five years I’d been a football manager.
“It’s been the best period of my times so far and I think I’ve benefited from it immensely. I’ve come back in far better shape.
“When you leave a club and leave it under the circumstances I did, it’s very easy to lay blame elsewhere but it’s very important to look at yourself.
“I spent time with my assistant looking over the many notes that we’d taken and analysed many of the situations we were subjected to.
“There were a number of jobs that came up and I was contacted about several jobs during my time out. The timing of them weren’t right.”
The former Scottish international feels his ambition matches that of chairman Andy Pilley’s, and believes this is the right move for him.
“I certainly feel this Club is definitely the right fit for me and I’m very looking forward to working with an ambitious chairman.
“Fleetwood is a remarkable story but the great thing for me is that it does stand on its on two feet. We have to be shrewd within the transfer market.
“We haven’t the shrewdest of budgets in the league and we have to be creative. The great thing for me is that I don’t have to reduce the budget here.
“When I was in charge at Falkirk I had to reduce the budget by 75% and at Coventry over a two year period it was 60%.
“These are challenging and difficult situations, but here I come into a Club where there does not require a reduction.
“The budget is tight and there isn’t a great deal of flexibility in it at this moment in time, but reducing is not the priority and that was very important.
“I think the five years prior to this have been a great apprenticeship to myself. I didn’t want to go into a club where again I had to address this situation.
“I like to play a very attractive brand of football by I also understand you have to win games. At times you have to find a way to win.
“I’m hugely honoured to manger of this football club, and the one thing I can guarantee is I will be relentless in my pursuit to take it forward.
“Anybody who knows me knows how intense I am. I am an absolute workaholic and I will work tirelessly with my players to improve them.
“Over the next few days we’ll drip feed certain things to the team and principles we’ll work towards, but that will take several weeks to implement.
“Slowly but surely we can change the players’ mindset to the way we want to play, and that’s no detraction on what Graham has done.
“Every manager has a different philosophy and a way of doing things, and Graham’s philosophy is slightly to different to mine and mine is different to somebody else.
“Graham is a terrific person and someone I know very well. He’s left great foundations for me as the next manager to try and move it on again.”