Heart of Midlothian were on the receiving end of a late Rangers rally at Ibrox as two late goals swung the match in the hosts' favour after Lawrence Shankland gave Steven Naismith's men an early lead in Glasgow.
Here's everything the Hearts head coach had to say when he spoke to the media at full-time:
That must have been a sore one for you?
It's really disappointing. We're sitting here having not taken anything from the game. We played really well, we understood how the game could play out. It went the way we expected. Second half we knew they would take more risks. We knew we would have to defend well and be resolute to frustrate them. We did that - and then the game hinges on the penalty, for me. The whole game hinges on the penalty decision.
What did you think of that decision?
I don't think it's a penalty. The full game, every corner there was blocking going on where Rangers players who were not even interested in the ball. All they were doing was looking at our man, blocking our players to stop them losing their runner. I spoke to the officials during the game and they said if it was given a goal, it would then be given as a foul. Lo and behold, there's a clear block on our man. John Lundstram is not interested in the ball, all he is doing is looking at our player, and he blocks him, and it gets given as VAR as a penalty. The referee said that he was never shown any video footage of any block happening. There's contact with our player as the ball is coming in by a Rangers player who is not interested in the ball. Clear obstruction, clear blocking, should be our foul. VAR should see that a foul has happened before the two players make contact [for the penalty].
And the referee didn't see it?
He said he didn't see that far back but it's pretty obvious, to be honest, when you look at it. And then, for the penalty in the first half, there's two minutes added on and it gets given in the 48th minute. Small details but they have a big impact.
Can you take encouragement from the performance?
We were defending well, comfortable in possession, so the game plan did work. The contrast from last week to this week is really good. Last week was not acceptable, we were honest about that. This week it was different, much clearer. We knew we needed to be brave on the ball, we did that. And at moments you need to defend, Rangers were resorting to cross balls, shots from the edge of the box that didn't really trouble us. So that's why there's so much disappointment.
Does the performance give you belief ahead of the League Cup semi-final?
I think so. It's a different dynamic, it's a cup semi-final, it's got to be done to a finish. The fans are going to be roughly an even split, so the game's totally different. But we believe, we believed last season. If we do all the things right we can compete in all the games. We showed that again.
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