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Edinburgh Live
Edinburgh Live
Sport
Ross Pilcher

Stephen Kingsley understands Hearts fans booing after Dundee defeat and vows to make amends vs Livingston

Hearts fans were entitled to boo their team off the pitch after losing to Dundee, says Stephen Kingsley.

Ellis' Simms first half strike was cancelled out by a Toby Sibbick own goal, before Danny Mullen completed the turnaround for James McPake's men.

The Tynecastle crowd voiced their displeasure at full time. Robbie Neilson 's men are still comfortably third in the table but with only one win in five.

The midweek reverse came hot on the heels of a 5-0 hammering at Ibrox the previous Sunday.

And Kingsley understands why stick from the stands reigned down as he and his Hearts teammates made their way up the tunnel.

He said: “Yeah, don’t really want to say much about it to be honest.

“It’s an embarrassing result at home 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 losing 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.

“We’ll definitely put it right on Saturday against Livingston in the Scottish Cup. We look to put these games to bed, try find out where we went wrong and move on.”

Asked if punters were right to boo the Jambos off in midweek, Kingsley replied: “Absolutely. 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 as I said it’s an embarrassing result for us.

“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, so we need to get ourselves sorted and get going again for that.”

Despite being well off Rangers in second but double digits clear in third, Kingsley agrees with Robbie Neilson when he insists Hearts aren’t in league limbo.

“No, that’s the mentality that we’re trying to make sure we don’t have.

“We’re 10 points clear, but we can’t afford to take our foot off the gas. You could say that looking at results, we’ve given 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 that. We’re bitterly disappointed with the result and scoreline against Rangers and it was a chance to give a reaction and show the fans a reaction.

“Periods of the first half we were creating chances, but at the end of the day when you concede two goals like that it doesn’t matter.”

Progressing to the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup would be a good way to make up for Wednesday night.

“Thankfully, you always have that chance to put it right,” said Kingsley.

"As I’ve said, 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 tonight on Saturday.”

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