Derek McInnes admitted Hearts’ 1-1 draw at home to Dundee United felt like a defeat, although he conceded his table-topping team did not deserve any more than a point.
The Tynecastle side’s advantage at the top of the William Hill Premiership was trimmed from nine points to seven after Luca Stephenson’s header late in the first half cancelled out a 25th-minute own goal from United goalkeeper Yevheni Kucherenko.
“I thought we didn’t deserve any more than the point we got,” boss McInnes said. “It’s difficult to be too critical of the fact that we’re 12 games in, we’ve hit 30 points already, we’re in the second week of November and we’re still unbeaten.
“But there’s no doubting that we came here with high expectations to get three points and I’ve got to accept that we weren’t good enough to get the three points today.”
McInnes was aggrieved that there were only three minutes of added time at the end.
“I believe the ball was out of the pitch for 47 minutes today,” he said. “Listen, we didn’t deserve any more than a point, but how we can only have three minutes added on at the end…
“If that was Rangers or Celtic at the top of the league, you can rest assured there’d be six, seven, eight minutes. That’s a fact. For all the stoppages, all the time that was taken for the ball to get back in play, that should have been far more than that.”
McInnes revealed that key midfielder Beni Baningime is set to be out until late December with a hamstring tear sustained on Friday.
“We think four to six weeks, so hopefully that is the case, no longer than that,” said the manager, who felt Hearts missed the 27-year-old’s “calmness” against United. “Probably back for Rangers on December 20.”
United boss Jim Goodwin was “slightly disappointed” his side did not end Hearts’ unbeaten run on a day when they had three goals ruled out for offside.
“It was a really good all-round performance,” he said. “I’m disappointed to not have scored more in the first half because of the opportunities that we had. The stats will show that Hearts had plenty of possession, but our goalkeeper’s not had a great deal to do.
“On the balance of play, maybe a draw is a fair result, but I’m slightly disappointed because I thought we just shaded it in terms of dangerous attacks.”
Goodwin was so pleased with the set-up of his team he opted to make no substitutions.
“It’s definitely the first time here that I’ve finished a game with the team that started,” he said.
“When you’ve got the use of the five subs, you always want to try and freshen things up, but at the same time, when you’re performing as well as we were and still carrying that threat at the top end of the pitch, you’re a little bit reluctant to disrupt things.”
