Stephen Kingsley admits Hearts fans had every right to vent their fury at the end of their “embarrassing” defeat by Dundee.
The Tynecastle side are third in the cinch Premiership but supporters were irate after seeing Sunday’s 5-0 defeat away to Rangers followed up by a 2-1 home loss to a Dark Blues side who were bottom of the table prior to their victory at Tynecastle on Wednesday.
Boos and angry shouts rained down on the players and manager Robbie Neilson after they squandered a 1-0 half-time lead.
“The fans are entitled to be angry, absolutely,” said defender Kingsley. “We hold ourselves accountable. We have standards of our own and we know what the standards of the club are, what the fans expect from us and it was an embarrassing result for us against a team bottom of the table.
“We know the levels we can hit and there were times in the first half where we created some chances, but when you concede two goals like that in the second half and lose at Tynecastle to the side bottom of the table, it’s just not good enough for this club, or for the levels that we hold here in this squad.”
Hearts are 10 points clear of the chasing pack in third place in the league and Kingsley warned his team-mates they cannot allow complacency to creep in or things could unravel quickly.
“That’s the mentality that we’re trying to make sure we don’t have, thinking third place is assured,” said Kingsley. “We’re 10 points clear, but we can’t afford to take our foot off the gas. Looking at the results, we gave teams below us the chance to catch up, but luckily the results have gone our way.
“It’s absolutely not good enough to be picking up results like Wednesday’s. We’re bitterly disappointed with the result and scoreline against Rangers and Wednesday was a chance to show the fans a reaction.”
Hearts face Livingston in the Scottish Cup on Saturday and Kingsley knows it is imperative they do not fall flat in a competition that means a lot to the supporters.
“We need to get to grips with what’s happened, move on and put it right on Saturday, because that’s a big chance to do well in the cup,” he said. “We need to get ourselves sorted and get going again for that.
“You always have that chance to put it right. We’ve got standards here and they’ve not been where we want them to be, so thankfully there’s another game on Saturday, which we’ll need to be up for and apply the things we’ve not done right.”
