PRESSLEY UPSET BY BHOYS COMEBACK

Hearts captain Steven Pressley claims "the better side lost" after Celtic snatched two late goals and all three points at Tynecastle on New Year's Day.

The second-placed home side were poised to narrow the gap on the Bank of Scotland Premier League leaders to one point after racing into a two-goal lead after only seven minutes, but they lost that advantage and tripped up 3-2.

Edgaras Jankauskas' fifth-minute opener was followed by Pressley's back-post header two minutes later from a Rudi Skacel corner.

However, Hearts spurned several chances to put the game out of reach of Gordon Strachan's side and Parkhead substitute Stephen Pearson pulled a goal back after the break just three minutes after replacing Stilian Petrov.

And after Hearts had full-back Takis Fyssas sent off for a professional foul on Shaun Maloney, Hoops defender Stephen McManus levelled the scores in the 88th minute and then plundered a winner in the first minute of stoppage time.

Scotland international Pressley said: "To play in the manner we did and come away with nothing is bitterly disappointing.

"In the first half especially, we played some of the best football of the season.

"Full credit to Celtic, they showed great desire and great application, but I still think over the course of the 90 minutes that the better side lost.

"We didn't quite get the second balls as we did in the first half but we must remember that we were playing against a good Celtic side and you can't expect us to dominate for 90 minutes.

"But I thought we played extremely well and on another day we would have won the game."

Pressley, like the rest of the Hearts camp, remains frustrated by the red card shown to Fyssas for the challenge on Maloney which, they claim, was similar to the first-half foul by Celtic defender Bobo Balde on Jambos midfielder Deivedas Cesnauskis.

Referee Iain Brines showed the Guinean stopper a yellow card, but when the Greek full-back hauled down Maloney there was no sympathy for the home side, the officials judging his offence more serious.

Pressley repeated claims by head coach Graham Rix and goalkeeper Craig Gordon that Brines was guilty of inconsistency.

He said: "I really can't understand it. I'm not a man who likes to look to referees for excuses because they have an extremely hard job in a high-pressurised environment but I just looked for an answer.

"What I asked him at the time was how he could differentiate between the incident with Bobo Balde in the first half and Takis in the second half.

"That was the reason I approached him, I wanted an answer on that.

"I thought both decisions were like-for-like, so we were disappointed in that."

Celtic's unlikely goal hero McManus played down the significance of the result.

He said: "We just went to Tynecastle believing in ourselves that we could pick up three points.

"The biggest encouragement was we would go seven points clear.

"But there's still a long way to go, anything can happen between now and May and we just have to take it one step at a time."

Taken from sportinglife.com