HEARTS' players last night turned on referee Iain Brines over his decision to send off Takis Fyssas en route to an extraordinary 3-2 defeat by Celtic at Tynecastle yesterday.

Goalkeeper Craig Gordon said that the team felt "a sense of injustice" when the Greek internationalist was dismissed with 16 minutes left. Hearts were 2-1 ahead at the time, and Celtic capitalised with two late goals by Stephen McManus.

Hearts were furious Fyssas was given a straight red card for a challenge on Shaun Maloney after Brines judged that he had denied the Celtic striker a goalscoring opportunity. Gordon drew comparisons with a similar situation in the first half when Celtic defender Bobo Balde was only shown a yellow card for a challenge on Deividas Cesnauskis as the Hearts midfielder bore in on goal.

Gordon said: "When something like that happens it is hard to take. The boys can't work out what the difference is between that [Fyssas' challenge] and the Balde challenge in the first half when he was just given a yellow card. That is what the players are most upset about.

"I did not agree with his decision. The sending-off was the key moment. When something like that happens, it's always going to be a talking point."

Gordon was closest to the incident, and claimed he ran out of his box not to protest, the decision but to defend the free-kick. "Everybody assumed it was going to be a yellow, " said Gordon. "I was just running out to get the ball and to organise my wall when the ref pulled out a red card. It was slightly bemusing as the ball was out of play at the time."

Graham Rix, the Tynecastle head coach, described the sending-off as "harsh". He said he had spoken to the SPL delegate at the match on how the referee handled the game but refused to divulge details of the discussion.

Rix said: "I have seen the incident in slow motion and I am not sure there is any contact or if he was going to score and the ball was going out. The referee has to make instant decisions.

But what happened was similar to the situation with Balde which occurred in a more central area and he got a yellow card. I thought the sending-off was harsh."

The incident was the main talking point in a game jampacked with controversy, and one which takes the Parkhead club seven points ahead of Hearts in the title race and further increases the pressure on Rix.

Regardless of the significance of the dismissal, Rix's side contrived to throw away a two-goal half-time lead and passed up a gilt-edged opportunity to close the gap on the leaders.

Vladimir Romanov, the Hearts owner, was at the match and would have been furious at the outcome. Rix has now been in charge for seven games of which Hearts have won two, drawn three and lost two.

Romanov has little patience with failure and now Rix is clearly living on borrowed time. Despite the defeat, he claimed he was proud of the way his team had played. Tactically, though, it could be argued that his side sat far too deep in the second half, allowing Celtic more space in the middle of the park to cause damage.

"It was hard for us to play as well as we did and take nothing from the game, " he said. "I can't remember Craig Gordon having that much to do but, to be fair to Celtic, they did play some terrific stuff in the second half."

He denied that his side lack a winning mentality and said he still had confidence in them despite their capitulation.

"If there is a disappointment it is that we didn't start the second half the way we played in the first, " said Rix. "We did have opportunities to get the third goal which would have killed the game off but did not take them. Also the two freekicks which led to the late Celtic goals for me were needless.

"There is a big gap between us and Celtic but the league is not over. We will hope to bring in players during the transfer window and do not think we will have to let people go."

Both Rix and Gordon looked shell-shocked at the end of a captivating 90 minutes of football. Even Gordon Strachan, the Celtic manager, looked drained following his side's remarkable comeback.

When questioned about the sending-off, Strachan did not refer to it specifically but said: "I spoke to Graham and it might have been the case that today we were the lucky team in terms of decisions. If we were the lucky team, we used that bit of luck and turned it to our advantage."

Overall, though, the Celtic manager was not happy at the way his side had started the game. He did, though, give, credit to Hearts for coming off the blocks at lightening pace and going two goals up in eight minutes through an own-goal from Ross Wallace and a Steven Pressley header.

Strachan said: "I suppose we were looking a bit nervous in the first 20 minutes. They showed great power play at that stage and by that I don't mean kicking lumps out of people. I mean holding the ball up front and protecting it well. At half-time we sat down and said that if we scored a goal it would make Hearts nervous and we had a chance, which is what happened."

HOW THEY STAND

Bank of Scotland Premierleague

PWD L F A Pts

Celtic 21 16 3 2 53 20 51

Hearts 21 13 5 3 41 16 44

Hibernian 20 12 1 7 34 25 37

Rangers 21 9 7 5 36 25 34

Kilmarnock 20 9 5 6 37 31 32

Motherwell 21 8 5 8 36 38 29