Robbie Neilson blasted “silly” Cammy Devlin for the red card that he admitted killed off any chance of a Hearts comeback against Rangers. The Jambos were trailing by a couple of Antonio Colak goals when the Australian midfielder was sent off for a foul on Rabbi Matondo.
And Neilson admitted that ended his side’s chances of getting back into the game with Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent adding further goals to complete a four-goal rout of his side ahead of a daunting Europa Conference League clash at home Fiorentina on Thursday.
The Jambos boss told Sky Sports: “I’m hugely disappointed. The red card killed the game for us. We had periods at the start of the game, the first 35 minutes, where we did well. Although we were a couple of goals behind, we were still in the game. When you play against the Old Firm and make decisions like that you give the referee an opportunity to send someone off so it’s always going to be difficult. It was a red card. It was a silly, silly decision by Cammy.
“He was on the touchline. There was no point in making that tackle. We live and learn from it. He’s been fantastic for us and just got an Australian cap. He’s so eager to do well but sometimes you need to tone it down. When you play in big games like this you have to keep eleven people on the pitch and if you don’t you make it very hard to get anything out of the game.
“We lost a goal from the first attack which was disappointing. And then we had opportunities but I just felt even when we had 10 men our final moment, final pass and quality of decision-making, wasn’t quite at it.
“It was hugely disappointing. I thought the 10 guys who stayed on worked extremely hard. We had to make a couple of changes at half time with injuries and even the guys who came on gave everything but the red card killed us.
“At 2-0 with 10 men we were still in the game at times and created a couple fo chances. We altered the shape and went to a three with two up front to try and take something from the game. If you just sit in with 10 men they will score goals and we just felt it was an opportunity to go and try and get something out of the game.
“We nullified them and created some chances but the final moment wasn’t quite there. It’s another huge game (against Fiorentina) and hopefully the learning curve from today is that we make sure we keep eleven players on the pitch and give ourselves an opportunity to try and win the game.”
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