Frankie Kent reveals bruised Hearts egos after ‘bullied’ criticism but vows to turn tables on Celtic

Frankie Kent reveals bruised Hearts egos after ‘bullied’ criticism but vows to turn tables on Celtic

Steven Naismith slaughtered his players after watching them throw away a half time lead at Aberdeen last week.

Frankie Kent admits accusations of being bullied will have bruised a fee egos at Hearts. But the Jambos defender insists Steven Naismith’s stinging criticism after last week’s defeat at Aberdeen was justified.

And he knows the best way to respond is by showing they won’t be intimidated this afternoon at Celtic Park. Harsh words were shared in the away dressing room last Saturday after the Jambos let a half-time lead slip at Pittodrie – and again at a team debrief on Monday. Kent said: “We knew it wasn’t good enough, especially in the second half. So there’s things that we’ve touched on throughout the week, things we need to get better at.

“(Being called bullied) is not nice. Obviously it hurts anyone’s ego being told that by your manager, but it’s one of those things. You have to bounce back from it, react to it, and prove that’s not the case.

“Was it fair? Probably. That second half, yeah. It was difficult to take. We knew we didn’t play well in the second half. There were things that we needed to sort out on the pitch and blah blah blah but it just wasn’t happening. We can’t rest on it, we need to react and there’s no harder game than tomorrow, away at theirs.”

Summer signing Kent has never been to Celtic Park and wasn’t aware the Jambos are looking to end a 16-year and 27-game wait for a Premiership win at Parkhead. He is now. But he said: “Nothing has been said to me (about the record) but I imagine that you’re asking because it’s not good.

“There’s always a chance, I think you’ve seen that in the last couple of games. They’ve drawn a couple, lost a couple, whatever it has been. This will be my first time at Celtic Park and these are 100 per cent the occasions that brought me to Hearts. I said when I first signed that these are the game you want to be involved in and enjoy.

“That’s only going to come by playing well and having a good team performance. I think everyone knows how Celtic play.

“We played them once before and we weren’t good enough at home. It didn’t go as well as what we wanted it to, we didn’t really show up.

We want to put in a better performance. Hopefully we’ll go there and put in a good performance and get a positive result.”