No excuses from Levein

MARK BONTHRONE

HEARTS boss Craig Levein today refused to use the fact that he had several first team players missing for Saturday’s game against Dunfermline as an excuse for his side slumping to their fourth consecutive defeat.

Despite dominating the match at East End Park, the Jambos left Fife empty-handed after going down 2-1 to Jimmy Calderwood’s men. Levein was without a clutch of key personnel for the game with regular strike partners and top scorers this season Mark de Vries and Andy Kirk out injured, skipper Steven Pressley still recovering from a thigh injury and Phil Stamp serving out the final game of a two match suspension.

That left the Gorgie boss without the regular spine of his side and necessitated a number of changes to the team that were knocked out of the CIS League Cup by Dundee.

Kevin McKenna was deployed as an emergency centre forward while Graham Weir was handed just his third start of the season. Scott Severin was promoted from the bench to fill in for the suspended Stamp.

Despite these problems, however, Levein insisted that they couldn’t be used as a reason for his side slumping to defeat.

"We had a team out that was good enough to win the game and I think that was evident over the 90 minutes," said the Hearts boss.

"We had players out but I would never use that as an excuse. The players have given everything they have got over the last few games and it’s just unfortunate that things haven’t gone our way.

"I’m not too downhearted at the moment because we are still playing well.

"They are a strong bunch of guys mentally and I know for a fact that they will all keep going."

Levein did concede, though, that he had been disappointed with the manner in which the Pars scored what proved to be the winning goal when Scott Wilson was allowed a free header from just six yards out.

"I thought that the second goal was preventable from a set-piece and I always think that you should defend better from set-pieces."

Taken from the Scotsman