Lawrence Shankland poses VAR question as Hearts captain addresses commitment claim

Lawrence Shankland admits confidence is low within the Hearts dressing room after the Edinburgh outfit sank to the bottom of the Scottish Premiership following their 2-0 defeat at Celtic on Saturday.

On an afternoon that turned on two VAR decisions, the Jambos skipper thought he had won a penalty for his side when his header hit the arm of Liam Scales in the first-half, only for referee Colin Steven to rule it out after being called to his VAR monitor. The decision was made all the more frustrating for the struggling Jambos when an Arne Engels penalty opened the scoring seven minutes into second-half after VAR intervened once again to rule that James Penrice handled in the area.

“I don’t think you’ll ever get clarity on it,” explained Shankland. “It’s the referee’s decision and you need to accept it. He’s had a chance to look at both of them. The guy has looked at a screen like everybody else and he judged it to be a penalty, so there’s nothing you can do. I don’t think you will ever have a situation where our handball will be the exact same as theirs and we give one and don’t give the other.

Lawrence Shankland looks dejected as he leaves the Celtic Park pitch at the weekend. Cr: SNS Group. | SNS Group

“You can go in to the referee but he comes and looks at a telly, which should be his decision. It shouldn’t be who talks to him. There’s a decision to be made and if VAR have said they think he needs to review it, then he reviews it. That’s his decision and that’s fair enough.”

While Steven Naismith’s side weren’t expected to pull up many trees in the east end of Glasgow, their barren run of results now places them bottom of the standings, with just one point from their opening five games, ahead of next week’s trip to St Mirren. Visibly frustrated after the game, Shankland was blunt in his assessment when asked what the Gorgie outfit require in order to dig themselves out of a tough run.

“No disrespect to anybody but I think we have a good enough team to win games in this league,” explained the Hearts skipper. “The goals are an issue, not just for me but for everybody. We are not scoring goals as a team, which is never a good problem to have. That needs to change as well if we are going to win games. We are aware of everything that is wrong so there’s nothing that can’t be fixed.

Stephen Kingsley and Lawrence Shankland discuss a decision with Celtic captain Callum McGregor. | SNS Group

“We need to pull a win from somewhere. I don’t think it’s ever been a question over commitment. We want to win games of football, we don’t turn up to get beat every week. It’s a bad spell and we all know that, but bad spells usually always come to an end. It’s difficult to see it coming when you’re going through these times.

“Mentally, football isn’t easy at the best of times but when you are going through a spell like this, it is tough to get out there. We just need to grind a win out from somewhere. There would be no better place to go and do it than St Mirren next week. I don’t imagine it will be an amazing game of football but if we can dig in there and get a result, hopefully that turns everything.”