Aaron Alex Pressley (born 7 November 2001) is a Scottish professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

for club

Accrington Stanley Accrington Stanley Football Club is a professional association football club based in Accrington, Lancashire, England. The club competes in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. They have spent their complete history ...

, on loan from club

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings whi ...

. He is a product of the

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park ...

and Heart of Midlothian

academies An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...

and was capped by Scotland at U16 and U17 level.

Club career

Brentford

After beginning his career in the Heart of Midlothian and

, Pressley transferred to the

B team B, or b, is the second letter of the Latin-script alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is '' bee'' (pronounced ), plural ''bees''. It r ...

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

club

on 29 January 2020. During what remained of the COVID-19-affected 2019–20 season, he scored three goals in six appearances. As a result of the EFL permitting 9 substitutes to be named in matchday squads partway through the

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

season, Pressley was promoted onto the first team substitutes' bench and was named in 15 matchday squads between November 2020 and February 2021. He made three substitute appearances during the period, but was not involved in Brentford's promotion-winning

playoff The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

campaign at the end of the season. Pressley top-scored with 19 goals in 26 B team appearances during the 2020–21 season and was voted the team's Players' Player of the Year. In May 2021, he signed a new two-year contract, with a one-year option. After Brentford's promotion to the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

, Pressley joined

League One The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...

club

AFC Wimbledon AFC Wimbledon is an English professional Association football, football club, based in London Borough of Merton, Merton, London, that plays in the EFL League Two, after being relegated from the EFL League One following the 2021–22 EFL Leagu ...

loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that d ...

for the duration of the 2021–22 season. Prior to being sidelined for 9 weeks with a hamstring injury suffered in a mid-December 2021 training match, he had made 25 appearances and scored four goals. As part of his return to fitness, Pressley was named in Brentford B's 2022

Atlantic Cup The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and ...

squad and made one appearance at the tournament. Following his return to the AFC Wimbledon squad in late February 2022, Pressley made two substitute appearances before suffering a reoccurrence of the injury, which ended his season and he returned to Brentford for surgery and rehabilitation. In his absence, the Dons were relegated to

League Two The English Football League Two (often referred to as League Two for short or Sky Bet League Two for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League Two from 2004 until 2016) is the third and lowest division of the English Football Lea ...

. Pressley returned to match play with the B team in mid-November 2022 and on 4 January 2023, he joined League One club

on loan until the end of the

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

season. On his second appearance, Pressley's two goals and performance in a

EFL Trophy The English Football League Trophy, known for sponsorship purposes as the Papa Johns Trophy after restaurant chain Papa John's Pizza, is an annual English association football knockout competition open to all clubs in EFL League One and EFL Le ...

quarter-final

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pen ...

win over Lincoln City saw him win the competition's Player of the Round award.

International career

Pressley was capped by Scotland at U16 and U17 level. In November 2021, he won his maiden U21 call up for a pair of 2023 European U21 Championship qualifiers and remained an unused substitute in both matches.

Personal life

Pressley is the son of footballer and manager

Steven Pressley Steven John Pressley (born 11 October 1973) is a Scottish professional Manager (association football), football manager and former Football player, player who played as a centre back. He was most recently the manager (association football), mana ...

and the older Pressley worked with his son in the role of Head of Individual Development at Brentford. Pressley walked out with his father as a

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fi ...

at the

2006 Scottish Cup Final The 2006 Scottish Cup Final was played on 13 May 2006 at Hampden Park in Glasgow and was the final of the 120th Scottish Cup. The final was contested by Heart of Midlothian (Hearts), who beat Hibernian 4–0 in the semi-final, and Gretna, who ...

. He attended

Cramond Cramond Village (; gd, Cathair Amain) is a village and suburb in the north-west of Edinburgh, Scotland, at the mouth of the River Almond where it enters the Firth of Forth. The Cramond area has evidence of Mesolithic, Bronze Age and Roman ac ...

Primary School and

Princethorpe College Princethorpe College is a Catholic independent day school located in Princethorpe, near Rugby, Warwickshire, England. Princethorpe College opened in September 1966 after the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSCs), purchased the site to use as ...

. As of February 2021, Pressley was living in

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, ...

. When Pressley's former Aston Villa academy teammate Charlie Farr transferred to Brentford early in the

season, he roomed with Pressley.

Career statistics

Honours

* Brentford B Players' Player of the Year: 2020–21

References

External links

* * *
Aaron Pressley
at brentfordfc.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Pressley, Aaron 2001 births Scottish footballers Scotland youth international footballers Brentford F.C. players Aston Villa F.C. players Living people Association football forwards Footballers from Edinburgh English Football League players People educated at Princethorpe College AFC Wimbledon players Accrington Stanley F.C. players