STEVEN PRESSLEY: HE GETS DRESSED IN DARK BUT ROB'S FUTURE STILL BRIGHT

AT the moment Hearts have four players in the senior Scotland team and last night we had three in with the Future squad.

When you have so many gaining recognition at international level that can only be good for the club and the players' confidence. Hearts also have a lot of talented foreigners who have made a huge impact at Tynecastle and have received some great publicity recently.

But wedo have a nucleus of Scottish players and that's vitally important for the future of the club.

Of the three Future lads, Christophe Berra has already represented the Under-21s and Jamie McAllister has won a couple of full international caps.

But this is the first international recognition for Robbie Neilson.

It is thoroughly deserved and I'm delighted for him because he's very much an unsung hero at Tynecastle. Yet by the same token he's very much appreciated by his team-mates.

He is another product of the Hearts youth policy which has produced so many good players over the past decade or so.

Robbie has made the right-back position his own and has shown remarkable consistency.

He's a lad with a terrific attitude and is developing into an excellent player. In the dressing room he is extremely popular and the only criticism I can level at him is the quality of his gear.

His clobber is terrible and I can only hope he soon learns to put the lights on when he gets dressed.

On another positive note it was great to finally get our first win under Graham Rix after two tricky away games.

It was important we sat top on Saturday and put the pressure on Celtic ahead of their game with Aberdeen.

Time and time again I have mentioned the strength of character within our dressing room and it has been tested numerous times over the last year due to the managerial changes.

This season we have worked under three different bosses and that can be hard to deal with for players.

We have had to endure quite a lot recently but the new manager is in now and we have all taken to him.

That's why we were so delighted for him when he collected his first three points in the SPL.

It was maybe a bit more nerve-racking than it should have been because we were leading 2-0 and cruising.

But Livingston pegged us back and there was a bit of anxiousness as we started to feel the pressure near the end.Thankfully we held on.

Expectation levels have risen dramatically this season and the draws at Aberdeen and Motherwell were looked upon as disappointing results.

That added to the pressure at the weekend although that's something we will have to deal with if we want to sustain a challenge.

So far we have coped fairly well and if you had said to us after the first day of the season we would be one point off the top of the league in December I'm sure we would have taken that.

We have given ourselves an opportunity and we must show we can handle it

Taken from the Daily Record