Hearts manager Neil Critchley admitted he was stunned at his side’s performance after they slipped to a disappointing 1-0 defeat to 10-man Kilmarnock at Rugby Park to remain bottom of the William Hill Premiership.
Despite playing almost the full match with a man less, after Robbie Deas was dismissed for a high challenge on Kenneth Vargas, Kilmarnock had the better chances and deservedly won the game thanks to Bruce Anderson’s first-half penalty.
Hearts pair Musa Drammeh and Yan Dhanda both hit the woodwork but the visitors were laboured and failed to maximise their numerical advantage.
Critchley said: “I’m more than disappointed. I was stunned by what I’ve just witnessed.
“We’ve made poor decisions off the ball and one of them cost us a penalty, which ultimately lost us the game.
“But after that, we’ve had ample enough time to get back into the game, and we didn’t produce anywhere near enough quality. Our intelligence and our decision-making were woeful.
“It’s like we forgot where the goal was. And I can assure you the message was, we need to ask questions of the defence, they’re going to put men behind the ball, defend low.
“And when you defend low, there’s not a lot of space behind, they give you the space in front, and we just played in front of them, we played into their hands, and we didn’t do anywhere near enough.
“It was as if we accepted what was happening on the pitch, and I was really shocked by what I saw.
“We need to make sure that we draw a line in the sand, and that level of performance can’t happen again.”
Kilmarnock manager Derek McInnes, meanwhile, was full of praise for his side’s performance with 10 men as they secured their first win since October.
He said: “The effort was ridiculously good. Any time you go down to 10 men you need to give a performance and a half. We had to play the game a certain way. We had to stay within our shape.
“The boys were magnificent. We’re having to work too hard too often this season because of the red cards but there’s only positives today.
“We had the best chances in the game. We had the most shots on target, even with 10 men I thought we had some brilliant moments. It was a great performance with 10 men.
“Some three points are better than others but that feels like a brilliant three points.”
The Killie boss also called for increased consistency in decision making, after Reo Hatate escaped a red for what he felt was a similar challenge by the Celtic midfielder at Rugby Park earlier in the season.
He added: “I’ve seen it back now and I can see why it does look pretty nasty on VAR. I’m not saying it’s not the right decision. It certainly wasn’t the scissors that Don Robertson indicated but he has come down with his right foot on Vargas and if you freeze it, it doesn’t look great, on his ankle.
“The thing is consistency though. (Reo) Hatate here a few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure it was a red but when it went to VAR, I don’t know for the life of me how it wasn’t given.
“The inconsistency is awful at the minute. There’s a Hearts player who was eventually booked that should’ve been booked twice before he actually is booked. He wasn’t booked for offences that my players have been booked for.
“This is what I’m going to keep banging on about and all the managers are the same. The same offence should either be a yellow or not. It shouldn’t be dependant on what referee you get. There has to be a clearer direction but we’re not getting it.”
