Derek McInnes suggests that VAR’s decision to rule out Tomas Magnusson’s opening goal was “harsh” following Hearts’ penalty shootout exit to Falkirk in the Scottish Cup.

Playing their third game in six days, Elton Kabangu’s missed penalty allowed Ben Parkinson to send the Bairns into the hat for the 5th round. McInnes felt the shootout defeat “stings that little bit more”.

‘There were a lot of people at the start of this week that said to me about prioritising St Mirren over the cup game, and I didn’t like that mentality, I thought we should be prioritising both.’

‘I think it’s important we are a strong cup team, it’s been a tough week, its took its toll in terms of injuries, suspensions, and the effort put out by the players output from the players’

‘We started the game really strongly. I thought we would really need to get off to a flying start and impose ourselves in the game, and I thought we were brilliant in that first half hour.’

‘But we were guilty of not taking enough shots, not working the goalkeeper enough, when you are as dominant as that in the first half hour youve got to make hay, and we didn’t.’

‘We lose a poor goal, which skews everything; it’s the type of goal we don’t normally lose, but getting done in the wide areas isn’t good enough.’

Hearts had initially taken the lead in the 53rd minute, after Magnusson crashed home from close range. But VAR deemed that the Norwegian used his hand to control the ball, keeping the score level. McInnes was “disappointed” with the intervention.

‘The angle I’ve seen is not definitive that that’s a handball unless VAR have seen it from the main stand side.’

But I don’t think VAR should be getting involved in that. I didn’t see any real motion from Tomas [Magnusson] to gain an advantage; it’s the type of thing that was said VAR wouldn’t be involved in a couple of weeks ago at Hampden with Willie Collum. I thought it was really harsh.

Captain Lawrence Shankland was forced off after suffering an injury, whilst the details of the knock remain unclear, McInnes may be without his starman before their table-top showdown with Celtic next week.

‘Not great, we don’t know exactly what he’s done, when it comes to penalties, you want to keep him on for obvious reasons, it doesn’t look good for next week anyway.’

We’ve got 8 days before we play Celtic, we’ll dust ourselves down, well see where we are, well get over the disappointment because that’s the job, and we’ll be ready for them.