Lawrence Shankland issues Hearts apology and insists players can have no comeback to raging fans' abuse

Lawrence SHankland has apologised to the Hearts fans for his side’s shambolic Pittodrie performance.

Robbie Neilson's men were down and out after less than half an hour as Aberdeen blew them away with three first half goals. Duk’s double before Matty Pollock’s header gained a bit of revenge for the 5-0 mauling the Jambos inflicted on the Dons at Tynecastle back in February. This latest result has Barry Robson’s team right back in the mix for third spot.

"But the travelling fans were more concerned with what they saw from their own players and made their feelings abundantly clear at full-time. On-loan Bournemouth defender was seen arguing back. While his captain didn't notice that, he insists neither he nor his teammates could have had any sort of justifiable comeback after what they served up. I didn’t actually see that,” said Shankland. “In all honesty, I don’t know what anybody could have said back to them.

"Abuse is obviously going to come your way because of that performance. It’s totally acceptable for the fans to do that. If somebody thought they were good enough out there and could argue back, then my God.

“I understand it [fan anger] totally. I apologise on the team’s behalf for the performance we put in. In the second half we had a bit of a go but the game was done. The fans travelled up in numbers and we’ve let them down.

“There isn’t much to say. I find it hard to believe if somebody doesn’t know how hard a game it’s going to be up there. The record Hearts have there tells you that. We won comfortably against Aberdeen at Tynecastle but it’s a completely different game at Pittodrie. If people thought it would be the same game, they’ve got a lot of thinking to do.

“A couple of weeks ago we lost to