Ryan Stevenson blasts 'embarrassing' Hearts board for referee statement and accuses club of fan con job

Losing the Scottish Cup semi final to Aberdeen was just another painful blow for Hearts fans in a season full of gut-wrenching disappointments.

But if that was bad then the statement that followed two days later from Tynecastle blaming the officials was absolutely excruciating. Downright EMBARRASSING. My toes are curling just writing about it now.

The Hearts board know they've got it badly wrong and they're just trying to deflect everything like it's not their fault. Do they think that fans are stupid enough to believe that garbage? They are actually trying to con their own supporters by claiming referee decisions have cost them this year. No they’ve not. They need to take responsibility and own the failure.

I know chief executive Andrew McKinlay apologised to the fans last week. But that should have been the final word. Not more blame throwing a few days later.

They had two days to think about things after the semi final and they’ve decided it was a good idea to come out with that statement?! Trying to blame everybody other than themselves.

Just hold your hands up and say ‘as a board, we've f***ed up this year. It won’t happen again’. End of. To then argue that Hearts are second bottom out of the ‘not getting decisions’ table - it’s a ‘poor old me’ tale and if that's what Hearts are hanging their hat on then it speaks volumes.

It screams of a board that are embarrassed by the fact that 22,000 fans travelled through to Hampden and were impeccable and sang the full game but in the end were left disappointed. Again.

The season has been a disaster from the get go. The recruitment wasn’t good enough last summer, handing Steven Naismith a new contract then firing him two months later was bizarre.

And finishing in the bottom