Neil Critchley accused John Beaton of a lack of respect and criticised the referee’s decisions to send off two of his players as Hearts suffered an agonising 2-1 Scottish Cup semi-final defeat to Aberdeen after extra time.
The Tynecastle side had Michael Steinwender red-carded in the 43rd minute after being deemed to have denied a goal-scoring opportunity when he fouled Topi Keskinen.
At that point, the match was delicately poised at 1-1 after Lawrence Shankland’s 28th-minute equaliser cancelled out an 18th-minute own goal by Hearts goalkeeper Craig Gordon.
Critchley’s side adopted a compact 5-3-1 formation in the second half and dug deep to take the tie to extra time and they looked on course to force penalties, until Cammy Devlin was shown a second yellow card in the 116th minute for a foul on Dante Polvara.
The Dons eventually made their numerical advantage count with a 118th-minute winner from Palestinian substitute Oday Dabbagh, with Hearts assistant boss Mike Garrity shown a red card at full-time.
“I’ve never seen a referee get a red card out quicker in my entire life,” he said of the pivotal decision to send off Steinwender. “It’s a long way from goal and we’ve got recovering defenders. He couldn’t wait to send him off.
“There were a few questionable decisions all the way through the game: Cammy Devlin’s first booking. And the second one, he’s in motion, he’s going to clear the ball and the lad jumps in front of him. Yeah, it’s a foul, but to book him, I mean, come on. Oh, wow. Absolutely incredible.”
Critchley was unhappy with the response he got when he and his assistant tried to speak to Beaton.
“I got some kind of response, yeah, but, obviously, when you try to say things in a respectful way, you hope you get respect back and I don’t think I got that,” he said.
“I was near my assistant who he sent off at the end, didn’t swear at him, asked to speak to him, his response was not very good in my opinion.
“And then when I asked him why he’d sent him off, for what reason, he then said he would send me off. I was thinking ‘for what reason, why?’
“I did not swear, that’s not how I conduct myself. You just hope you get that level of respect in return and in my opinion we didn’t get that.”
Critchley was “really proud” of his team’s performance.
“We were the better team in the first half and then with 10 men, we were brilliant,” he said.
“The least we deserved, in my opinion, was to take it to penalties. Aberdeen might still have won, but at least we would have had that opportunity, which I think the performance deserved.”
Aberdeen boss Jimmy Thelin was delighted to reach the first final of his managerial career.
“It doesn’t matter how you win a semi-final, you just have to win,” said the Swede, whose side struggled to penetrate their opponents until Dabbagh’s late winner.
“Hearts started well and we were under pressure. The red card helped to get more calmness in our team. But we know from experience that when they’re a man down, there’s less space for us to play.
“We kept pushing and adding fresh players. The subs added energy and finally we had that extra punch to win the game. Now we have to celebrate.”
