Neilson slams match officials after defeat

ROBBIE NEILSON claimed his Hearts side were beaten by poor decisions from officials in the narrow loss to Celtic.

The Jambos gaffer blasted the decision to allow Kyogo’s controversial first-half strike stand despite furious protests from Hearts players that he was offside.

And Neilson, despite fears of an SFA ban for comments after the match, stated the “poor decision” from Bobby Madden (below) and his assistants was pivotal in the match and cost his side dearly.

Speaking on Sky Sports, he said: “I felt today we didn’t get beat by Celtic, we got beat by poor decisions from the referee and the linesman.

“We can all laugh and joke about it, but I said a comment after we were at Ibrox previously and I got the book thrown at me so I can’t say too much about it.

“It’s disappointing when you come here and put all that work rate into a game and, the players were magnificent, and you get beat by a poor decision from an official.”

Asked to talk viewers through the incident, Neilson simply added: “It’s offside.

“The linesman’s looking straight along the line, he’s ahead of the ball, there are no players in his line blocking it. He’s got to see it but like I said, it happens and we’ll have a laugh and joke about it.”

Neilson went on to reveal he had tried to speak with officials after the match.

“I tried to but it’s a bit of a waste of time”, he said. “You just end up just getting banned, you get yellow cards and red cards.

“I’m sure the linesman will have a look at it and the referee will have a look at it and they’ll WhatsApp each other and then move onto the next game.”