Elvis proved right by Jambos’ resurgence

HEARTS skipper Steven Pressley could be forgiven for sticking two fingers up to those who doubted the Jambos could turn their season around and telling them: "I told you so."

It wasn’t so long ago that many observers thought the Gorgie outfit were destined for a season spent languishing near the bottom of the table after a spell which saw Craig Levein’s side stumble from one bad result to another.

With just one win in nine games during a well-documented barren spell, the merchants of doom were quick to forecast a rocky time ahead for Levein and his young side.

However, Pressley was unstinting in his belief that his team-mates could emerge from that critical period and prove their mettle and the captain has every right to feel that his faith has been justified in the wake of Hearts’ impressive recent form.

Saturday’s Tennent’s Scottish Cup third-round triumph over Ross County at Tynecastle was their fifth win in six outings and means that Rangers are the only side to have beaten Levein’s Jambos in the last nine matches.

It is a run which has propelled Hearts into the top six of the Premier League with sights now set on overhauling the likes of Kilmarnock, Aberdeen and even third-placed Livingston in the months ahead.

"There was a lot of flak flying around earlier in the season which culminated in demonstrations outside the ground," said Pressley.

"And when that sort of thing happens, believe me, the players take it personally, as when you have a successful side out on the pitch, the problems off the pitch tend to subside.

"We have rallied together and have a great team spirit in the dressing-room just now. One of the important factors is that we have a lot of players who are hungry for success.

"We have younger guys like Stephen Simmons, who has been a real find for us this season, and they desperately want to prove themselves as well as the older ones who are still desperate to succeed.

"It is a good mixture and one which always gives you the chance of doing well.

"The win over Ross County on Saturday means we now have five wins and a draw from our last six matches and that has given everybody a great deal of confidence.

"When we were going through our poor spell I don’t think a lot of people believed me when I said that football can change very quickly and that we would eventually turn things round.

"But it does change from week to week and at the moment we are reaping the benefits of everybody in the team working hard for each other.

"We have addressed the problem and stuck together and that has helped us come through the difficult period.

"But if we are to continue to do well we have to guard against complacency in the weeks ahead and keep being professional."

Having made the most of the comforts of home in last few matches, Hearts will take to the road for most of the next month after the weekend visit of Aberdeen with tough trips to Livingston, Celtic and Dunfermline on the cards - a run only broken by the Scottish Cup fourth-round tie at Tynecastle on Saturday, January 26.

However, Pressley is confident the team can rise to those challenges.

He said: "We have a difficult period coming up with three out of our next four league games away from Tynecastle.

"But we have built up a degree of momentum and must look to continue that.

"It is a difficult period for us but probably two of our better displays of the season came away from home in the recent wins over Dundee United at Tannadice and St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park.

"We were being criticised for our performances away from Tynecastle but those games have shown we can win on the road and we will approach the coming few games with confidence.

"However, before that we welcome Aberdeen to Tynecastle and if we have any aspirations of catching Livingston in third place we must look to winning that one."

The former Dundee United stopper is quietly confident that the Jambos are due a decent run in the Scottish Cup, the draw for the fourth round pairing them at home to either Arbroath or Inverness Caley Thistle later this month.

Victory would carry Hearts into the quarter-finals of the competition and Pressley said: "We desperately wanted a home draw and that’s what we achieved.

"The last couple of seasons have seen us drawn away to Celtic and Rangers so we are reasonably happy with the way the fourth round pairings worked out.

"Hopefully we can get a good run in it this season and the confidence we have at the moment gives us the belief that we can win most of the matches that we go into."

Taken from the Scotsman