Stephen Kingsley has admitted he is embarrassed to be part of a Hearts team that suffered their heaviest-ever defeat at Celtic Park, losing 7-1 to the champions. The Jambos vice-captain struggled to hide his emotions after the match, but insisted nothing will ever hurt as much as last season's title heartbreak at the same venue.
Kingsley on the pain of defeat
Speaking after the game, a dejected Kingsley said: "No, nothing will ever be worse than that. I think it's very difficult to sum everything up. I think it's just very raw. Embarrassment, I think, with the first half in terms of the way we lost the goals. I think we shot ourselves in the foot countless times."
He added: "Celtic were clinical, fair to them, fair play to them, but I just felt like we played right into their hands. We gave them exactly what they wanted. We made too many mistakes, two set pieces to start it off. It kills you straight away. You can't do that when you come to places like this."
A calamity of errors
Kingsley described the performance as a "calamity of errors," with every mistake being exposed by a clinical Celtic side. He said: "I think it was just a calamity of errors. I think after that, every error we made seemed to be exposed. They were good at it. Obviously, they're a great counter-attacking team. They've got pace, they've got quality. So it's very disappointing that we knew that going into the game and played right into their hands. You can't do that when you come to places like this."
Wouter Vrancken's men arrived in Glasgow's east end as the Premiership's top scorers, sitting just five points behind the table-toppers. However, their goal difference advantage was obliterated in a humiliating 90 minutes, a huge setback for their title challenge.
Rallying around each other
Kingsley acknowledged the need to pick themselves up quickly, saying: "We need to rally around each other and make sure that when we come into training that we're ready to go and we're ready to refocus on the next challenge. There's horrible situations that you can find yourself in and games that it doesn't work out for you."
He added: "Myself and I'm sure the other boys as well will be in and around the group and make sure that we're picking everyone up where they will. Because we believe in what we've got. That's the main thing as well. We didn't show it today, quite obviously. But we believe that we've got something special in our changing room."
Kingsley stressed the need to accept criticism alongside the plaudits the team has received, saying: "We've got major plaudits from a lot of people from how we've played. But when you take those plaudits, you need to take the criticism when it comes your way as well. It's a rollercoaster of a season. It's always the same. You're going to have your ups and downs. This is hopefully a blip on an otherwise successful season."
Looking ahead to Trabzonspor
With a Europa trip to Trabzonspor looming on Thursday, Kingsley knows Hearts cannot afford to dwell on the result. He said: "It's one of those results that, if you linger on it, then you can let it fester and seep into future performances. But we can't have that. We look at it, obviously, and we look at things that we've done wrong. To be honest, we probably know that ourselves after this game."
He concluded: "Then we put it to bed and move on to the next game because the next one's not going to get any easier. We've obviously got European competition again on Thursday, another hard game away. So we need to bounce back quick and really try and put on a performance that we can be proud of because it's far from that, isn't it?"
