Aberdeen boss didn’t sugar-coat the Dons’ 2-0 defeat at Tynecastle when he spoke to the press after the game.

“We were nowhere near the levels required and that’s really disappointing.

“Hearts were better in every department tonight and sometimes you have to hold your hands up and admit that we were beaten by the better team.

“We started very poorly, Hearts penned us in for the opening ten minutes, then it settled down a wee bit but we never really got any rhythm in the game, we never put enough passes together, kept turning over cheap possession, any time we went forward it just kept coming back.

“Credit to Hearts, they deserved their victory, we made them look a very good team tonight because we never got close to them. We didn’t show enough aggression, enough energy and that’s something we need to take responsibility for.

“Saying all of that, I felt the goal that Declan Gallagher scored in the first half at 0-0 was a legitimate goal. The referee deemed him to have fouled Simms in the box but to me, there was absolutely no foul and that goal should have stood. I’ve watched it back from a couple of different angles and it should have counted.

“That would have put us in front and put a completely different complexion on the game. Their fans would have got edgy, that might have transmitted itself onto the pitch and who knows where the game goes from there. I’m not saying we deserved to be in front at that point but the referee disallowing it was a big turning point in the game.”

The Dons continue to be depleted by injury, but Goodwin was not looking for any excuses, stressing that his side simply has to get on with the job as best they can.

“The reality is that we have a lot of good players out injured at present, we had Covid issues at the weekend, things outside our control haven’t been going our way. Tonight Matty Kennedy felt his back go, Jonny Hayes had to come off, we’ve had half a dozen injuries in ten days, so if it doesn’t rain, it pours at the moment. It is what it is, and we have to make the best of a difficult situation.

“Jonny took a head knock and I felt the game should have been stopped immediately. We talk about player welfare, it’s in the headlines a lot, but we have to follow through on it on the pitch. He wanted to carry on but I felt the right thing to do was to protect him and take him off at that moment.

“In terms of the way the season has gone, the fact is that I wouldn’t be here if the results previously in the season had been better. At the end of the day, a good man, Stephen Glass, lost his job because of the results and there comes a point where everybody needs to take some accountability. I include myself in that. I’m not throwing anybody under the bus. That was my team out there tonight, my tactics, my game plan, but we all need to accept what happened.

“I’m not saying we’re in a crisis or anything like that, but we need to do the basics better. We’re going to have to work very hard on that between now and the end of the season. We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, we need to get on the training pitch and work hard to make sure we improve on tonight.

“We are at the wrong end of the table, there’s no getting away from that. We still have aspirations of getting into the top six before the split, but it gets harder as games go by and we don’t win them.”