Hearts goalkeeper Colin Doyle admits he was ‘gutted’ that his costly error meant the Gorgie outfit left Motherwell with nothing to show for their efforts on Sunday.
The Republic of Ireland cap misjudged the bounce on David Turnbull’s injury-time free-kick and the ball glanced off his shoulder before landing in the net in the 2-1 defeat.
Doyle, who has been in possession of the gloves since replacing Zdenek Zlamal on December 22, had pulled off a series of fine saves earlier in the game.
Hearts manager Craig Levein revealed that the 33-year-old ‘held his hand up’ regarding the glaring mistake after the game and Doyle has taken to Twitter to express his disappointment over the manner of the loss.
Doyle said: “Gutted about yesterday (Sunday) ending and result. No excuses. I cost us a point. I’ll learn from it and move on.”
Levein, meanwhile, admits Hearts’ failure to close the gap on the teams above was more annoying than the weekend’s defeat.
With Aberdeen being held to a draw at home to St Mirren and Kilmarnock losing to Celtic, Hearts had the chance to close in on third place in the Premiership.
However, the Gorgie outfit are now four and three points behind the Dons and Killie respectively ahead of Saturday’s visit of St Mirren.
And Levein was disappointed his team failed to bolster their chances of landing an automatic Europa League place.
He said: “It’s the disappointment of getting ourselves in a good position to really close the gap on the two teams above us and missing that opportunity.
“That’s the biggest annoyance for me. We didn’t play poorly, we had some good chances but unfortunately we ended up shooting ourselves in the foot.”
