Hearts rivals accept 'tall order' claim as Jambos sit ten points clear in third

Hearts beat Aberdeen 2-0 at Tynecastle despite controversial and lengthy VAR decisions

The Tynecastle crowd were treated to yet another triumph as Hearts beat Aberdeen 2-0 with goals from Jorge Grant and Lawrence Shankland securing the home side three more points. The game was not without its controversies as the visitors had an early goal ruled out after it was deemed Bojan Miovski had fouled Beni Baningime in the lead-up to the North Macedonian's goal.

The Jambos first goal also came as a result of another VAR review with Kevin Clancy awarding the home side a penalty after Alan Forrest's cross struck the arm of the Dons right-back Nicky Devlin. Shankland's goal 20 minutes later then concluded the battle with Hearts now ten points clear of their nearest rivals and Aberdeen's chances of catching up are quickly slipping away.

Speaking after his team's defeat - to which he was then greeted by chants of "get to f***" - the Dons boss Barry Robson admitted it would take an extraordinary effort to replicate their prospects at a place in Europe with Hearts' position behind Celtic and Rangers looking more and more settled.

"Is third place a foregone conclusion for Hearts now?", Robson questioned. "It's a really tall order, I understand that. Me as a person and this football club keep fighting on, that'll never change. We'll go and try and win against a good Dundee side.

"It wasn't the result I was looking for," the Pittodrie boss added. "I thought in the first half we played well, we were the best team and scored a really good goal. For whatever reason it was cancelled out and it went against us. Second-half we were still the team doing all the attacking and doing well in the first ten minutes, then you get a penalty against you. We can't coach that, it's hard to tell a player... he's tried to pull his hand back in, it's hit his hand.

"The bit I'm angry about", Robson confessed "is us as a team after that, we need to be better. When you go a goal down you've got to be better after that because it happens in games. It doesn't matter if you're performing better you've got to see out the next five minutes. It gives Hearts a lift, they weren't really threatening before that. It's when you need to be strong as a team and make sure you try and perform and get the goal back. We never done that, unfortunately. That's my anger, the reaction to the goal, because we should've been better as a team."