NOT HAPPPY
Steven Naismith hits out over Celtic vs Hearts VAR handball controversies as he insists NEITHER should be penalties
He plans to speak to refs chief Willie Collum on the matter
STEVIE NAISMITH claimed NEITHER side deserved a penalty on a day of video nasties for the Jambos.
The visitors has one turned down vis VAR despite ref Colin Steven deciding Celtic defender Liam Scales had used an arm.
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Then remote assistant Alan Muir added insult to injury by saying Hearts full-back James Penrice had stopped a cross with his hand.
And the luckless Tynecastle boss groaned: “I don't think our penalty is a penalty in the guidelines in terms of the distance between the players. But I also don't think theirs is a penalty either.
“I suppose it’s down to opinion, but the images we were shown before the season were all down to distance.
“It hits James’s arm, but for me there's nothing he can do. The motion is the one that we were shown in pre-season.
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“So I disagree with that and that's a big moment in the game.
“I just feel both incidents are in the same ballpark. I don't think the distance between James and the ball is great enough that he can get his hand out the way.
"I think we all need to work together to get better at everything. I am sure Willie has been open and honest and I'm sure we will have a conversation at some point."
And as their start to the season extended to one draw and seven straight losses, Naismith cursed his side’s luck, saying: “I said during the week that everything that could go wrong is going wrong or any mistake that's made by us is getting punished at the moment, as simple as that.
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“This is just another example of that.
“But I think there’s positives in this game – the discipline, the way we worked and the way defensively we understood when to press, when not to press. Plus, the chances that we ended up creating, there were a couple of good ones in there.
“We've now got a month of games before the international break and we need to win games.
"But from what I've seen today, I think we'll start picking up points.
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“Individually there will be players involved in some of the incidents that have lost us games whose confidence will go, but to be at a club like Hearts, you need to deal with that and accept it and work out how it is you turn that.
“You need to have that mental toughness to work it out: I’m maybe not doing this great at the moment, but the other areas in my game I'm going to make sure I'm on point and you grind through it.
“We've got a young squad, but I've seen enough positives through this season to know that that we will come strong.
"We've got good quality and the biggest area for me that we've had to get better in is that final third. I expect us to sort that.”
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