Stephen Kingsley backs Hearts to respond after 'embarrassing' defeat to Dundee

Embarrassed by the loss to Dundee, Hearts’ Stephen Kingsley says the players are ready to put things right when they face Livingston on Saturday.

Falling short of the standards they have set themselves this season as they took up a commanding position at third in the league, they are looking to back that up by progressing to the quarter finals of the Scottish Cup.

But to do that they will have to raise the performance levels after a difficult few games, which culminated in defeat to the relegation battlers on Wednesday evening.

“It’s an embarrassing result at home against a team who were bottom of the table,” said the 27-year-old. “We know the levels we can hit and there were times in the first half where we created some chances, but when you concede two goals like that in the second half and lose at Tynecastle to the side bottom of the table, it’s just not good enough for this club, or for the levels that we hold here in this squad.

“I thought we were soft, second half especially. We just shouldn’t be conceding those two goals.

“We’ll definitely put it right on Saturday.”

Injuries have prompted a few defensive reshuffles with Craig Halkett missing from the back three, which had performed so well with John Souttar and Kingsley either side of him.

But, losing seven goals in two games, they have shown the kind of fragility that has been punished and in a one-off cup tie, he knows that could be fatal to their season’s ambitions.

“We can’t afford to take our foot off the gas. You could say that looking at results, we’ve given teams below us the chance to catch up, but luckily the results have gone our way.

“We have to hold ourselves accountable. We have standards of our own and we know what the standards of the club are,