Hearts faced Aberdeen at Pittodrie in the first round of the Scottish Premiership over the weekend. A fixture which hasn’t gone the Jambos way in over 10 years, and this one was no different.

Wouter Vranckens first Premiership game in charge may be one to forgot as his side lost 2-1. The Edinburgh side struck first. A striking header from Oisin McEntee after 35 minutes had them dreaming of a long awaited victory at Pittodrie.

But Aberdeen pulled it back, 2 goals in 5 minutes for Kevin Nisbet, the first right on 90 minutes as Lewis Mayo found him in the box, a perfectly placed ball as the striker was tangled between Maroon shirts but he found the back of the net. A VAR check completed to rule out any hand ball and the Dons were level.

5 minutes into injury time Toyosi Olusanya times a good run towards goal but is brought down in the box by Stuart Findlay, the defender is shown red for the denial of a goal scoring opportunity.

Hearts announced on Monday they were appealing this decision on ground that there was an attempt to play the ball, which if true should have resulted in a yellow card.

The verdict was announced on Tuesday afternoon that the appeal has been dismissed and Stuart Findlay will have to serve a 1 match ban against Dundee United.

The news will not come easy to Vrancken and his side as they face a lot of missing defenders at the moment, Craig Halkett suffered an ACL injury against Motherwell back in May while both Steven Kingsley and Malachi Fagan- Walcott are also out through injury.

Findlay will however be eligible to play in Hearts’ next fixture on Thursday night which is the Round 3 of the Europa League Qualifiers against Benfica in Portugal.