Lawrence Shankland has opened up on Hearts' abandoned friendly with Almeria insisting: "It got blown out of proportion."
Robbie Neilson and his Jambos side headed off to Spain for some training ahead of the second part of the season resuming and they set up a clash with Spanish opposition while in the country to keep match sharpness in the legs of the Tynecastle stars. However, the game was halted after an altercation between the two sets of players. In the end the Scotland striker believes it was a 'sensible decision' but revealed the players were left laughing at what had happened once they returned to the dressing room.
Giving an in-depth description from Hearts' point of view, Shankland - Speaking to Edinburgh Evening News - said: “I actually don't think it was that bad. It got blown out of proportion a wee bit.
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“The initial incident: Alex has just left a wee bit on the boy. It happens in every game of football. The big boy at the back has obviously reacted and that's what's caused our reaction. But it all honesty it wasn't anything major.
"I think it got out of control a wee bit. The manager just felt it was best to call it a day in case anything else silly happened after that. That was probably a sensible decision, to be honest.
“We were just laughing when we got back to the dressing room. With the initial incident with Alex, if that's where it stopped then nothing would have been made about it. It was the boy's reaction to that by charging over and sort of pushing Alex by the throat. You can't really have that sort of thing happening to your team-mate so everyone rushes over to sort it out. It was done after that.
“These things tend to blow up. That's the internet these days. It's interesting the amount of people who want to watch it. For us it was nothing major and nobody was that bothered about it as soon as we got back here [to the La Cala resort].
“There was a couple of hard challenges, aye. It was quite a competitive game for being a friendly to start with. Sometimes they can get like that.
"It's two different cultures and different people, so the understanding at times is a bit broken as well. But nah, it wasn't much and I don't think I'll be thinking about it much from now on.”
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