Craig Levein has hit out at Christophe Berra's leadership as Hearts suffered a disappointing defeat to Queen of the South.
Robbie Neilson's men failed to respond to their shock Scottish Cup midweek against Brora Rangers as they slumped to a 3-2 loss against The Doonhamers.
The Jambos boss is under severe pressure as supporters protested outside Tynecastle before kick-off and Saturday's result will only bring more criticism his way.
And former boss Levein, who was in attendance, has questioned the leadership of Hearts' experienced players including Berra, as he claimed the skipper was silent throughout the 90 minutes.
He told BBC Sportsound: "I played for a long time under Alex MacDonald and he could kick you up the backside when you needed it, but there were boys on the field that would do that. I would do that myself.
"You could not hear any of the players here shouting. Christophe Berra is the captain, and I would have expected to hear him.
"He has been associated with Hearts for a long, long time and I'd expect to hear him going crazy on the field today, and shouting at people.
"People have a go at me, I've had a shot at doing this, but this is the first time I've been back at the stadium for a year or so and I was really, really disappointed."
Allan Preston also delivered a scathing verdict at full-time as he called Hearts' performance 'gutless' and 'disgraceful'.
He added: "I expected better. I thought you would get a wounded animal today after all the criticism from Tuesday and that wasn’t the case.
“Hearts are in a real quagmire. I don’t know where they go from here. There’s a lot of soul searching that’s got to go on, from the board members, from Ann Budge from Robbie and his staff and, most importantly, from the players.
“The last five days for this football club were simply not good enough. Some of them were absolutely gutless today. The two performances they’ve put in for this club have been nothing short of disgraceful.”
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