Juanma Delgado must cut out theatrics, says McKay

Hearts' Juanma Delgado celebrates after scoring. Picture: Ian Rutherford

“He’s a typical foreigner,” said St Johnstone’s Brad McKay. “He gets touched and he goes down. He rolls about the place and holds the back of his head. I think he’ll have to cut all that out.”

McKay, who moved from Tynecastle to McDiarmid Park in the summer, slipped to hand the Spaniard a debut goal after just three minutes. Hearts twice squandered two-goal advantages on a day when they unfurled the Championship flag, but eventually won 4-3 through Sam Nicholson’s 80th minute strike.

Of Juanma, McKay added: “Maybe he’ll win them penalties and free-kicks in dangerous areas… we’ll see. But I think Hearts fans were getting on his back today as well. He did well for a couple of their goals but I don’t think the supporters appreciated him going down so easily. I don’t think anyone in Scotland likes that, to be honest.”

At one stage the two players clashed. “There was a tussle between us,” added McKay. “As a defender you like that. It didn’t seem as if he liked it but he’s going to have to get used to it.”

Returning to Gorgie, McKay had been looking forward to the game hugely, but was annoyed with himself for the error which cost his new team the opener. “I made a bad mistake. I slipped and at this level these things cost you. I thought we did well to get back into the match but if we defend like we did we’re not going to pick up many points.

“Hearts are good going forward but we gifted them every goal. We don’t follow the penalty in [Jamie Walker scoring from the rebound], I slip, we don’t track Callum Paterson for his goal, the same guy crosses for the winner and we don’t cut it out.

“I thought we could have taken at least a point. We caused them problems up front but the goals we lost were criminal.”