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After the painful loss to Glasgow Celtic, Edinburgh Hearts' head coach Valdas Ivanauskas admitted that the champion's title is now a 17-point lead in the hands of the current leader of the Premier League, while Gordon Strachan identified one of the reasons for his team's victory as the opponents getting tired.
"Now it will be very difficult. We are already behind Rangers by five points, and our goal is second place. It's a pity, because I think we deserved something from these matches. We created opportunities and could have scored more. Celtic is a smart and experienced team, so we needed to score a second goal. We made a couple of mistakes and they scored twice," Ivanauskas said.
"I have no complaints for the players. I think the team did their job well, we played decently. However, we needed to score a goal and secure the lead. It's normal that we played at a high pace, putting pressure on the opponents, that's what you need to do if you want to win. We lost and now we need to focus on the next matches," the coach stated.
Meanwhile, Celtic's strategist G. Strachan said he believed that the opponents would get tired towards the end of the match: "They played well in the first half, but we didn't give up. When we were behind 0-1, we defended well several times. I asked the players to stay focused, as I thought Hearts would tire after fifteen minutes of the second half. Fortunately, we have good players and we managed to win."
"The first goal came after a really great shot, there wasn't much we could do. Later, Craig Beattie coming on to the field gave us strength, determination, and caused problems for them. We are happy with our position. Hearts is a really serious opponent, so coming here and winning is a big plus," said the Celtic coach.
