Hearts star Andy Halliday insists there was no malice in his challenge on Callum McGregor as he rubbished the conspiracy theory over Bobby Madden.
The pair have both appeared on Open Goal and some social media conspiracy theorists claimed their friendship meant the whistler didn’t show a card.
But Halliday was having none of it and while he admitted it should have been a yellow card, he claims there’s no way it could have been a sending off.
He defended the incident and insisted there was no malice and it was just an attempt to stop McGregor from breaking away and there was no chance he could have seen red.
He told Open Goal: “I’ve heard the rumours flying about. It sums up some of the mentalists these days.
“That’s not a red card.
“It’s a yellow card 100 per cent but it’s not a red card.
“There was no malice or intent in it whatsoever.
“Genuinely, there was no malice or intent. It was a poor tackle and it deserved a booking.”
But while Hearts did get the win and have been widely praised for the result, Halliday insists they could and should have played better.
And he heaped praise on Robbie Neilson for the work he put in to the game to get the result at Tynecastle.
He said: "I said last week, Celtic are a good team but we’ll be confident against anyone at Tynecastle. If we play well we’ll get results.
"To be honest, I think we can play better on the ball and creating chances.
"We started the game really well in the first 15/20 minutes and if you go 1-0 up in a game where you’re not fancied, I don’t know what it is but you drop that five yards deeper to hold on to it.
"It probably helped Celtic a wee bit but I thought we defended really well. It was the last couple of minutes until Celtic created two really great chances but that’s why you have top goalies.
"After the final whistle I was buzzing but see during the game? It’s so hard to enjoy games like that. You’re so concentrated and invested in working as hard as you can to get the result.
"What did we have? 29 per cent possession.
"I might get a bit of stick of this off the boys but the gaffer deserves a lot of credit for the result."
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