Neil Critchley slams ref as Hearts boss says penalty award torpedoed game plan in Copenhagen

Furious Neil Critchley slammed ref Andrea Colombo over the penalty award he says cost Hearts a chance to throw everything at a late leveller in Copenhagen.

The Jambos lost 2-0 to the Danish Superlig leaders and now need to take something from next Thursday’s final league phase game at home to Petrocub to secure a Conference League play-off spot. But Critchley was raging at the 78th minute penalty awarded after a VAR check when Craig Gordon was adjudged to have fouled Amin Chiakha after a collision in the six-yard box.

Copenhagen's Kevin Diks buried the penalty to end Hearts’ hopes after Chiakha had opened the scoring early in the second half. And Critchley - who also saw defender Frankie Kent leave the ground in a leg brace after going off injured in the first half - said: “We played against a very good team, I think that was obvious, you can see that, the evidence was on the pitch for us to see that. They were a better team, they deserved to win.

“You plan to have a go but then their technical quality can sometimes limit how you can get after the ball and press and when you do that they play through you or play beyond you, it's very difficult.

“But really poor decision has taken away our chance of having a right go near the end of the game which is what I'd spoken about at half-time. We had a plan and we're on the cusp of doing that and changing and going for the game because you might as well go for it 1-0, press, go after them, really go after them.

“He gets there first and he kicks the ball onto Craig's arm, you can see it deflects off his arm and then there's a collision, there's always going to be a collision because he's flying for the ball and Craig's coming out. It's just a natural coming together of players,