A fuming Craig Levein said Hearts were playing against 13 men after Rangers left Tynecastle with all three points thanks to a controversial winner from Alfredo Morelos.

Gareth McAuley’s own goal had put The Jambos ahead, only for Connor Goldson to equalise before Morelos made it 2-1 from an offside position.

Levein was left dumbfounded that the Colombian escaped punishment despite what he saw as a succession of fouls, and blasted the overall performance of referee Bobby Madden.

“I read a quote from Neil Lennon a few weeks ago when they went to Celtic Park and he said that ‘we were playing against 12 men’ and that’s how I feel today,' he said.

“How Morelos stays on the park, never mind gets through that without a booking I’ll never know. Some of the decisions today were abysmal.

“Austin [MacPhee] phoned John Fleming [Scottish FA head of referees] a while ago because we had three goals against us that were offside because the linesman made mistakes.

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"John Fleming suggested that we held the line on the 18 yard line to make it easier for his officials. So we did that today and they still f*****g got it wrong!

“Actually, it was 13 we are playing against. And the good thing is that Neil Lennon didn’t get any punishment - that’s good to know.

“So: the referee was abysmal and we were playing against 10 men. That’s my view on it. It’s really good news that there won’t be any punishment.

Asked if he’d gone to see Madden after the game, the Tynecastle boss replied: “What’s the point, unless he’s got a time machine and go back to fix his mistakes.

“Morelos had loads of fouls where he doesn’t even watch the ball. He just jumps into the centre-backs.

“There was one where he has smashed Christophe and Bobby said to one of our players: ‘It’s alright, that’s just Morelos - he’s a bit silly sometimes’.

“Well maybe I’ll tell our players to be silly because you don’t get booked for it! It was an abysmal performance.

“The funny thing is that he said before the game and warned us that we are not allowed to look at any reviews of situations that have happened in the match and complain about them to him.

I asked him: ‘the fact you are warning us - does that mean you’re planning on making loads of mistakes?’ And he laughed. No wonder.”

Aside from all that, Levein did feel there positives to take form his side’s display.

“We were much better than we have been,” he assessed. “I thought Sean Clare is getting closer to what we think he is, Arnaud Djoum was excellent again,

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“Christophe [Berra] - I can’t speak highly enoughof him after his performance after the amount of time he has been out. He was excellent. We miss him and you saw yesterday what a difference he makes.

“We had a lot of good chances and Allan McGregor was good in the first half. We were much better than what we have been lately and I take great encouragement from that I just wish we had got the tangible reward of getting something from the match.”

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