Scottish Football Podcast: Reaction as title takes another twist
Derek McInnes acknowledged the need to keep himself "in check" following Hearts' recent draw at Livingston, to avoid overreacting to the team's slip-up.
The Scottish Premiership leaders returned to the top of the table after their 2-2 draw against Livingston, the league's bottom club, in West Lothian. However, with both Rangers and Celtic securing wins over the weekend, Hearts' lead has been reduced from three points to just one.
"We go a point clear with six games to go, we're still top of the league and people need to remember that, I'm trying to keep myself in check with that," McInnes told Scotland.
"It's a missed opportunity today. We came here with a lot of motivation and a lot of expectation on ourselves but we have to be honest and say that the point was probably all we deserved.
"It might be a really important point come the end of the season, so we're not going to get too hung up on it.
"It does put more scrutiny on the games coming up and obviously we want to make sure we win the next home game which will be tough enough as well."
Hard to hide disappointment after another tough away day
McInnes appeared visibly disappointed after the match, marking another difficult away outing for Hearts. The team has now gone four away games without a win, including matches against the league's bottom two teams, Kilmarnock and Livingston.
The recent draw was particularly frustrating as Hearts had come from behind to take the lead through Claudio Braga's 13th league goal of the season.
"I'm more disappointed than anything because we'd done so much to get ourselves in front and we needed to enjoy being in front a bit more - I think it was seven minutes between both goals," McInnes said.
"We came out second half and we felt the goal was coming. When we were good in the game, we were very good.
"We were polished and connected the game well and looked after the ball well, we were very good and at times in the game we looked like a team at the top of the league.
"But there was just too many moments where we were sloppy, a bit anxious with some of our defending, the gaps were too big between us at times."
Livingston's equalizer stemmed from a loose pass when Craig Halkett failed to find Islam Chesnokov on the right flank. Livingston then broke down their left side, with Cristian Montano delivering a cross that Lewis Smith converted at the back post.
"The second goal is a ridiculous goal to lose, so we're disappointed with that," McInnes added. "You can't keep pulling yourself off the canvas.
"Half an hour to go, I wanted to try and carry a bit more threat in that but what you've got to remember is you're up against a team at the bottom of the league and all of a sudden they've got something to hang on to."
Following Celtic's away victory at Dundee, Martin O'Neill's Livingston side now hold the best away record in the league. Rangers are second, with Hearts in third place.
The Jambos have suffered only five defeats all season, but all have occurred on the road against Aberdeen, Hibs, St Mirren, Rangers, and Kilmarnock.
McInnes was keen to challenge the perception that matches at venues like Rugby Park and Almondvale are straightforward wins.
"There's no easy games in the league," he said. "We've had a poor 20 minutes at Kilmarnock really and got ourselves behind, but we didn't do enough to win that game either.
"The last couple we've been guilty of losing poor goals and not doing enough to win games. The game at St Mirren was 10 men [after Craig Halkett's red card] and then we lose the game at Ibrox and I thought we were very good in the game."
"We're going to have to be really strong with our home form as we have been all season but there's no doubting that a couple of big results on the road wouldn't do us any harm. That's where we need to try and address it."
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