Deans reveals Vlad's rage over Celtic equaliser

HEARTS were still nursing a grievance today over Jiri Jarosik's equalising goal for Celtic in Saturday's defeat, in which the Czech appeared to foul visiting defender Ibrahim Tall.

Majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov was privately angered after the 2-1 loss in Glasgow, believing that Jarosik had impeded Tall on his way to nodding home Shunsuke Nakamura's 86th-minute corner.

Referee Craig Thomson gave no indication of any foul play, but the Hearts hierarchy believe they have once again been the victim of the poor standard of Scottish refereeing.

Former chairman Leslie Deans, who attended the match, spotted the incident at the time and spoke with Romanov on the subject afterwards.

Deans said: "Up until the 86th minute the referee was strong but the reality is that, for the fourth game in a row against Celtic, a big decision has gone against Hearts.

"I went in to the boardroom after the game on Saturday and, after I'd cooled down, I spoke with Vladimir. I sensed that he felt exactly the same as I did - a mixture of anger, disappointment and frustration.

"The one positive we can take is that I sensed this makes Vladimir more determined than ever to change this, to do everything he can to have an effect. It's sad that the game should be going through this.

"The Celtic player is levering on Tall at their first goal. In all the drama of what happened this point has been overlooked and we are primarily getting sick and fed-up of what is happening in Scottish football. Think back to Takis Fyssas' red card on New Year's Day, the Roman Bednar penalty incident at Celtic Park in April, and the disallowed goal we had against Celtic at Tynecastle earlier this season. The point of all this is that Scottish football is not doing itself any favours by allowing this to continue. We ultimately have to look at how referees are handling the game in this country, and if they're not up to it we must bring people in from elsewhere.

"Nobody is suggesting referees go out intending to be biased. We accept that the breaks in football balance themselves out, but when you play time after time against the Old Firm and you see the breaks going against you then what is the explanation for it?"

Hearts' acting head coach Eduard Malofeev was disappointed to see his side overhauled having been in front until Jarosik's goal, and could only lament his substitutions which appeared to hand Celtic the impetus for the closing stages.

"I made two necessary changes which were unsuccessful," said the Russian. "If I made a third change it may also have been unsuccessful and I didn't want to risk that.

"Gordon Strachan put the Czech player on [Jarosik] and he scored a goal, so Strachan was lucky with that.

"Bruno was tired and it was time to replace him, but now I am thinking I shouldn't have done that."

However, Malofeev was resolute in the fact that Hearts can make up the 13-point gap which now exists between themselves and the SPL leaders.

"We are going to learn how to run quickly and we are going to get them. It's not going to be interesting if we just stop playing, so we will fight till the very end."

Taken from the Scotsman