Robbie Neilson insisted Hearts were robbed of a penalty after a red card decision all but ended his side's Europa League hopes. The Jambos boss believes Jorge Grant's second half dismissal for an alleged dive under a challenge from FC Zurich's Karol Mets was the wrong call and swung the play-off second-leg tie in the Swiss side's favour.
Neilson was full of praise for his side's dominant display as they went down to a late Fabian Rohner strike to lose 3-1 on aggregate and drop into the Conference League He said: "When I speak to our players I say to them, when you’re in the penalty area, you can’t come off your feet.
"If you do, you have to make contact with the ball. He comes off his feet. The striker, in my opinion, is under no obligation to get out of the way. So as soon as there’s contact, it should be a penalty. But the referee has seen it a different way. And it cost us the tie."
At that point we were still 2-1 down from the previous game. They get a chance to then open up. If you give these players time on the ball, they are good players, they are internationals, the league champions.
"We found it hard then to get pressure when we needed it. He has made his decision. Everyone has a different opinion. People say there is contact, people say he goes down too easily.
"But if you are a defender and you come off your feet and you make a challenge and you do not hit the ball, and you make contact with the player, it’s a penalty. But we didn’t get it. I think there’s contact. It’s happened now. There’s not much we can do."
Hearts will now go into the Europa Conference League draw and the chance to be paired with the likes of West Ham, Fiorentina and Villarreal but Neilson wasn't looking any further than handing out praise to his players for their display against the Swiss.
He said: I’m very proud of the players. I thought they were outstanding. I’m proud of the club. They’ve had a long journey - from administration through to promotion. The whole objective of the club was to give back to the fans. There’s a lot of pride.
"For the first 60 minutes, I thought we were outstanding. I thought we were the better team. We took on the Swiss champions and put them under massive pressure. The sending off changes the game and made it very difficult. There is disappointment, but overall, pride in the players, the club, the fans and the board."
Neilson also condemned an incident where skipper Craig Gordon appeared to be struck by an object thrown from the section which housed the away fans and admits it was a repeat of an missile being thrown at Jambos defender Alex Cochrane during the Edinburgh derby against Hibs earlier this season at Easter Road.
He said: ‘It’s disappointing. You don’t want to see that in football. We’ve had it already this season at a ground we’ve been at. It’s something that has to be eradicated. You don’t want to see it. I don’t know what it was. If it was a coin he’d probably have caught it."
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