Neilson disappointed but says Celtic still in sights

Despite having witnessed his side drop points in consecutive weeks against sides currently in the bottom six, Hearts manager Robbie Neilson refused to dismiss his side’s chances of putting pressure on Celtic at the top of the Ladbrokes Premiership.

The visitors twice fell behind at Fir Park with Louis Moult and Marvin Johnson netting for the hosts. Even though Juanma and Osman Sow kept Hearts’ unbeaten run going, they still trail Celtic by five points in the table, with the champions squaring off against Inverness CT today.

Neilson will be keeping a keen eye on that fixture as he looks to see whether Celtic will suffer any European hangover.

“Ask me again at 3pm tomorrow, then we’ll see where they are,” said Neilson when quizzed about the league leaders. “You never know, it might turn out to be a good point.”

“We were in second position, now we’re in third, playing against a team that’s second bottom in the league. We wanted to get the three points.

“I’m encouraged with coming back but the disappointing thing is that we’re losing goals. We went five games without conceding and now we’re coming here and losing two poor goals. We should be keeping a clean sheet and letting our flair players win it for us.

“We tried to get it down and start passing. When we put the ball in the air it was just bouncing about. It’s blowing all over the place and that’s difficult for the strikers. So we tried to get it down but I didn’t feel that really worked until we got Prince Buaben on. Then things got better.”