Our Hearts weren’t in it and that stinks slams angry Steven

Steven MacLean has accused Hearts of throwing in the towel during their 5- 0 humbling by Livingston on Friday night.

Livi skipper Craig Halkett’s penalty in 72 minutes opened the floodgates and after Arnaud Djoum was sent off , MacLean claimed the Hearts players ‘chucked it’.

Goals from Dolly Menga, a Ryan Hardie brace and Shaun Byrne completed the rout.

MacLean ( below) said: “It’s pretty much as low as I’ve felt after a game. The rest of the boys are feeling it too.

“It wasn’t good enough. We chucked it, it’s not acceptable, not from any one of us.

“It’s not good enough for a Hearts team. There are 11 boys in the dressing-room who need to take responsibility because that can’t happen again.

“At times decisions went against us but there are ways to respond to that. After the first goal we need to regroup but then the second goes in and we folded like a pack of cards. That’s unacceptable.

“We need to realise if things don’t go our way we can’t just go gungho when we’re down to 10 men. There was enough experience in there to sort it out and we didn’t. It’s just not acceptable.”

MacLean admits no punches were pulled as the shellshocked Jambos stars went at it in the dressing-room at full-time.

He added: “If 11 individuals don’t do their jobs, or 10 when we lose a man, that’s going to happen. We have to take responsibility. There were words said between the players at full-time and we all know the situation as a team.”

Hearts left the f ield to a deafening chorus of jeers from those away fans who had stayed until the bitter end.

MacLean, who apologised to the supporters for a nightmare evening, reckons the players deserve the flak.

He said: “We’re rightly going to get hammered. We have to apologise to our supporters and to the manager as well.

“We’ve got a massive game against Aberdeen next, then Hamilton, then the derby. We need points from these games.”