Former Hearts star Ryan Stevenson savaged The Jambos’ performance in their 1-1 draw with Queen of the South as ‘rubbish’ as he castigated the Tynecastle side for their poor showing.
A late Liam Boyce penalty rescued a share of the spoils for Robbie Neilson’s men after a turgid 90 minutes in which they created little in the way of goalscoring opportunities.
The Hearts boss blamed his side’s sloppy play on the state of the Palmerston pitch, claiming the artificial surface ‘slowed down’ their passing game.
The Capital side extended their advantage at the top of the Championship to 13 points thanks to the Northern Irish international’s intervention after Ayo Obileye’s controversial penalty opened the scoring for The Doonhamers.
But Stevenson was far from pleased with what he saw from his former club, for whom he scored 26 times across two separate spells, as he laid into the more experienced members of the Tynecastle squad for failing to raise the level of performance.
Appearing as a pundit on BBC Scotland's coverage of the game, he said: "I watched the Ayr United game, it wasn’t great but they came away with the three points. They've come away with a point tonight. I don’t think they deserved it. I think they need to do much, much better from what they’ve been doing.
"They’ve got so much experience through their team. It wasn’t until Stevie Naismith came on that you heard somebody speaking, somebody telling players where to go.
"I don’t think you can have [complacency] when you play for Hearts. You are playing for a massive team. I find it difficult to take.
"You are coming here, representing a club the size of Hearts. No disrespect to Queen of the South but you are playing Queen of the South.
"Yes, we can all have bad nights. I get that, I understand that. I had plenty of them. but what you can’t get away with is not going into tackles, not trying to dominate your opponent.
"I just think Hearts were so passive at times, that’s the reason why Queen of the South were much better than them."
