Lawrence SHankland has apologised to the Hearts fans for his side’s shambolic Pittodrie performance.
Robbie Neilson's men were down and out after less than half an hour as Aberdeen blew them away with three first half goals. Duk’s double before Matty Pollock’s header gained a bit of revenge for the 5-0 mauling the Jambos inflicted on the Dons at Tynecastle back in February. This latest result has Barry Robson’s team right back in the mix for third spot.
"But the travelling fans were more concerned with what they saw from their own players and made their feelings abundantly clear at full-time. On-loan Bournemouth defender was seen arguing back. While his captain didn't notice that, he insists neither he nor his teammates could have had any sort of justifiable comeback after what they served up. I didn’t actually see that,” said Shankland. “In all honesty, I don’t know what anybody could have said back to them.
"Abuse is obviously going to come your way because of that performance. It’s totally acceptable for the fans to do that. If somebody thought they were good enough out there and could argue back, then my God.
“I understand it [fan anger] totally. I apologise on the team’s behalf for the performance we put in. In the second half we had a bit of a go but the game was done. The fans travelled up in numbers and we’ve let them down.
“There isn’t much to say. I find it hard to believe if somebody doesn’t know how hard a game it’s going to be up there. The record Hearts have there tells you that. We won comfortably against Aberdeen at Tynecastle but it’s a completely different game at Pittodrie. If people thought it would be the same game, they’ve got a lot of thinking to do.
“A couple of weeks ago we lost to Motherwell and it was the exact same mistakes we made, so we haven’t learned. People need to look at themselves individually. It’s a man’s game. You need to look at yourself and stand up if you’ve done things wrong. If you aren’t realising you’ve done things wrong then you will come out of the team, potentially.
“I’m sure we will have a few tough talks this week. The bigger picture is: It’s only one game we’ve lost again. We need to get back to work on Tuesday and deal with it then.
“In this league, if you give teams a three-goal headstart then you give yourself a mountain to climb. Aberdeen have a bounce with Barry (Robson) being in charge and they’re doing well at the minute. I don’t know what our approach is. I don’t know if we think it’s going to be an easy game or what, but we are not at it for 25 or 30 minutes of the first half. The game is done.
“It’s a hard one to explain when you look around and it feels like you’re not up for it. I don’t know if that’s just how well Aberdeen played but I fail to believe that. It's us not stamping our authority on the game from the start. You can’t do that in this league. You will get punished and we did. The game was pretty much done at half-time.”
READ NEXT:
